Lesson 12
How To
Study the Bible Lesson 12: Word Studies.
By Shane Scott
Importance of Word Studies
Some may dismiss the value of such word studies, but no serious Bible student can afford to do them, for the following reasons.
1) Words mean things. God carefully inspired each word of the Bible (I Cor. 2.-9-13). Each word is important, so we should not just assume we know what the words mean, but we should take the time to study them.
2) Words change meaning over time. For instance, in the KJV of 1 Thess. 4:15 we are told that those who are alive at Christ's return will not "prevent" those who have fallen asleep. In our time, "prevent" means "stop." But in 1611 "prevent" meant "precede." Without doing a word study, this text in the KJV could be confusing.
3) No English translation is perfect. There are many good translations, but it is impossible to find an exact English correspondent to every Hebrew and Greek word. By doing word studies, you may find valuable nuggets of information that an English translation could not simply translate.
How To Do A Word Study
The first step in doing a word study is to locate the word you are studying in an exhaustive concordance (a concordance that contains every word in the Bible). Concordances are tailored to translations. Since most people here use either the KJV or the NASB, I will refer to the concordances for each of those versions. The best concordance for the KJV is Strong's. The reason Strong's is the best is because Strong's has a number assigned to each Greek and Hebrew word in the Bible. Many grammatical tools use this same number code. all you have to do is match the number in Strong's with the same number in reference works that use the Strong's system. Then you can read the definition of a properly coded Greek or Hebrew word without having to know a bit of Greek or Hebrew! Best of all, the NASB concordance uses the same numbering system as Strong's, which means that NASB users can use those same reference works which are coded to Strong's.
Let's illustrate how to do a study based on the KJV rendering of 2 Timothy 1.14, and the word "keep." To study what this word means, look up "keep" in Strong's.
In Strong's, there is the passage reference, a portion of the verse with the word in question abbreviated by its first letter ("k"), and the number code. Since the Bible contains Hebrew and Greek words, the number code reflects this distinction by writing the number code in normal numbers for the Hebrew dictionary, and italicized numbers for the Greek dictionary. In Strong's. when a number code appears several times in a row, a quotation mark (") is used rather than repeating the number. Here that number is 5442.
Next look at the entry in the Greek dictionary (and make sure you are in the Greek dictionary rather than the Hebrew).
A. The Greek reference number.
B. The Greek word in actual Greek letters.
C. The Greek word in English letters (called a transliteration).
D. A phonetic (sound-it-out) pronunciation guide.
F- The derivation of the word.
F. The definition, in italics.
G. Following the colon and dash are all of the different renderings in the KJV.
Now let's do the same study in the NASB. There, the word is translated "guard." In the NASB concordance this will have the same code number, so turn to the Greek dictionary to 5442.
A. Code number.
B. Greek word in Greek letters.
C. Greek word in English letters.
D. Semicolon (;) followed by derivation of the word.
E. Another semicolon, followed by the definition in italics.
F. A colon and dash (:--), followed by all the ways this word in translated in the NASB.
G. The number of times each translation is used is in parenthesis
A Final comment.- CONTEXT RULES!
Knowing the definition of a word is important but the same word can have many different shades of meaning. For this reason the context Is the ultimate rule of thumb. In 2 Sam. 2.14, Abner challenged Joab's men to "hold a contest' (NASB) or "make sport" (KJV). But the context (see verse 16) shows that this was not intended to mean a harmless game. Be sure to record how an author uses a word.
Questions and Projects
1. Why are word studies important?
2. What ultimately determines the meaning of a word?
3. Project Use a KJV Bible and Strong's and find what difference (if any) there is between the word "burdens" in Galatians 6:2 and "burden" in Galatians 6:5.
4. Use an NASB and NASB concordance to determine the meaning of "had relations' in Genesis 4.L In what way does the context play a role here?
Choose any word you would like to study and complete this assignment.
WORD STUDY PROJECT
Translation you are using:
Word you wish to study.
Scripture reference where this word is used:
Strong's Number
Transliteration:
Definition:
Other ways this word is translated: