Word study

Womb

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with one of these: womb, wombs. 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 “womb” or one of its forms.

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • בֶּטֶן beṭenbelly, body, wombtranslated this way 37 times of its 64 uses · Strong’s H990Noun  ·  Translated: womb 36, belly 8, stomach 3, within 3

    Genesis 25:23 and He declared to her: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

    Deuteronomy 7:13 He will love you and bless you and multiply you. He will bless the fruit of your womb and the produce of your land— your grain, new wine, and oil, the young of your herds and the lambs of your flocks— in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you.

    Full study and all 64 verses →
  • רֶחֶם rechemwombtranslated this way 22 times of its 24 uses · Strong’s H7358Noun  ·  Translated: womb 20, wombs 2, birth 2

    Genesis 20:18 for on account of Abraham’s wife Sarah, the LORD had completely closed all the wombs in Abimelech’s household.

    Exodus 13:2 “Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The firstborn from every womb among the Israelites belongs to Me, both of man and beast.”

    Full study and all 23 verses →
  • רַחַם rachamwombtranslated this way 2 times of its 43 uses · Strong’s H7356Noun  ·  Translated: compassion 24, mercy 6, mercies 4, womb 2

    Genesis 49:25 by the God of your father who helps you, and by the Almighty who blesses you, with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the depths below, with blessings of the breasts and womb.

    Proverbs 30:16 Sheol, the barren womb, land never satisfied with water, and fire that never says, ‘Enough!’

    Full study and all 42 verses →
  • מֵעֶה mêehinternal organs, inward parts (intestines, bowels), bellytranslated this way 2 times of its 30 uses · Strong’s H4578Noun  ·  Translated: body 4, within 4, heart 4, stomach 3

    Ruth 1:11 But Naomi replied, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you go with me? Are there still sons in my womb to become your husbands?

    Psalm 71:6 I have leaned on You since birth; You pulled me from my mother’s womb. My praise is always for You.

    Full study and all 28 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • κοιλία koilíabelly, womb, the inner mantranslated this way 8 times of its 20 uses · Strong’s G2836Noun  ·  Translated: womb 7, stomach 6, belly 3, birth 2

    Luke 1:15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He shall never take wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.

    John 3:4 “How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”

    Full study and all 19 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.