Word study

Yoke

4 Hebrew and 1 Greek words behind this English word

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

Compare the Hebrew words side by side

Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)

  • עֹל ôlyoketranslated this way 37 times of its 39 uses · Strong’s H5923Noun  ·  Translated: yoke 32, made our yoke 2

    Genesis 27:40 You shall live by the sword and serve your brother. But when you rebel, you will tear his yoke from your neck.”

    Leviticus 26:13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk in uprightness.

    Full study and all 33 verses →
  • מוֹטָה môṭâhpole, bar (of yoke)translated this way 9 times of its 12 uses · Strong’s H4133Noun  ·  Translated: yoke 9, bars 2, poles 1

    Isaiah 58:6 Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

    Jeremiah 27:2 This is what the LORD said to me: “Make for yourself a yoke out of leather straps and put it on your neck.

    Full study and all 10 verses →
  • סְבָלָה sebâlâhburdentranslated this way 2 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H5450Noun  ·  Translated: labor 2, yoke 2, forced labor 1, hard labor 1

    Exodus 6:6 Therefore tell the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

    Exodus 6:7 I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians.

    Full study and all 6 verses →
  • צֶמֶד tsemedcouple, pairtranslated this way 2 times of its 14 uses · Strong’s H6776Noun  ·  Translated: pair 5, teams 2, yoke 2

    Job 1:3 and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.

    Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed Job’s latter days more than his first. He owned 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.

    Full study and all 14 verses →

Greek words (New Testament)

  • ζυγός zygósa yoke, heavy burden, pair of scalestranslated this way 5 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s G2218Noun  ·  Translated: yoke 5, pair of scales 1

    Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

    Acts 15:10 Now then, why do you test God by placing on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?

    Full study and all 6 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.

What the Bible says about yoke: passages by topic →

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.