# Hebrew and Greek help with the word WORD



## Semper Fidelis (Jan 31, 2009)

Doing a word study of Word and this is what Logos came up with:







Why are so many Hebrew and Greek words translated as words and what are the different meanings? I can get a sense for them in the context but any broad or specific thoughts would helpful.


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## fredtgreco (Jan 31, 2009)

Rich,

The initial point is that words do have shades of meaning, so there can be many synonyms, just as in English. "word" "saying" "comment" "story" etc.

There is also the fact that this is a rather crude computer method. It is a brute force kind of look up, not a fine-tuned one. For example in the Greek one, you have:

ὄδε λέγω - demonstrative pronoun with verb "to say" literally "that which I say"

λέγω - verb form of logos, means "to say"

ὁ λογος - most common, means "word, matter, thing" roughly comparable to Hebrew _davar_

ρῆμα - means statement, word (one of the basic ones, with logos)

ὁ ρῆμα - same word as the one above, just a different form (masc. not neuter)

ἀκούω - verb, means "to hear"

φάσις - used only once in NT, means "report" (as in "we got word of the battle"


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## Whitefield (Jan 31, 2009)

From Girdelstone's _Synonyms of the Old Testament_



> The most ordinary Hebrew terms setting forth the Divine utterances are _amar_, to say and _davar_, to speak. The former refers rather to the mode of revelation, and the latter to the substance. Hence _davar _is frequently rendered thing, as in Gen. 15:1, 19:8; compare Luke 1:37. _Milah _has also been rendered word in thirty passages, nineteen of which are in Job and seven in Daniel. It is used in 2 Sam. 23:2, "The spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue;' Ps. 19:4, "Their word unto the end of the world.' In the LXX the verb _amar _is generally rendered _hepo _and _lego _and the noun _hrema _and _logion_; _davar _is generally rendered _laleo_, and the noun generally _logos_, sometimes _hrema_, and in thirty-five passages _pragma_. _Milah _is rendered _logos _and _hrema_; and _Nam_, to utter or assert, which is rare in the earlier books and frequent in the later, is rendered _lego_. _Peh_, mouth, is rendered word in Gen. 41:40 and fourteen other passages.


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