Word study

Willingly

3 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “willingly”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.

At a glance

How often each original word is translated “willingly” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • נָדַב nâdabincite, impeltranslated this way 3 times of its 17 uses · Strong’s H5068Verb  ·  Translated: prompted 2, volunteer 2

    1 Chronicles 29:6 Then the leaders of the families, the officers of the tribes of Israel, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and the officials in charge of the king’s work gave willingly.

    1 Chronicles 29:17 I know, my God, that You test the heart and delight in uprightness. All these things I have given willingly and with an upright heart, and now I have seen Your people who are present here giving joyfully and willingly to You.

    Full study and all 15 verses →
  • נְדָבָה nedâbâhvoluntariness, freewill-offeringtranslated this way 1 time of its 25 uses · Strong’s H5071Noun  ·  Translated: freewill offering 10, freewill offerings 9, freely 3, willingly 1

    2 Chronicles 35:8 His officials also contributed willingly to the people and priests and Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, the chief officials of the house of God, gave the priests 2,600 Passover offerings and 300 bulls.

    Full study and all 25 verses →
  • לֵב lêbinner man, mind, will, hearttranslated this way 1 time of its 526 uses · Strong’s H3820Noun  ·  Translated: heart 326, hearts 78, mind 30, judgment 11Full study and all 495 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ἑκουσίως hekousíōswillinglytranslated this way 1 time of its 2 uses · Strong’s G1596Adverb  ·  Translated: deliberately 1, willingly 1

    1 Peter 5:2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness;

    Full study and all 2 verses →
How to study a word well
  1. Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
  2. Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
  3. Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
  4. Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
  5. See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
  6. Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
  7. Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.

Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.