-Not to worry about the numbers off to the side of the word you are looking up.
-There is a Greek and Hebrew dictionary in the book.
Well, we are going to going back to those two points to understand scripture on a deeper level and gain knowledge of their true meaning. Keep in mind. All of this can be done online; a concordance book is not nessecary. There is just something I love about a book :)
If the Bible has an English translation why do we need the Greek and Hebrew dictionary? Good Question! What do you call the white fluffy stuff that falls from the sky in winter? Snow, right? Well the Inuit tribe, loosely known as Eskimos, have over 200 words for snow. Snow is their life. Think about your experience with snow. Some have been good and some bad. There's the fantastic snow that packs well for snowmen and snowballs, the snow that turns to slush, the snow that is hard as ice, pretty snow, ugly snow, etc. The Inuits have a word for each type. The English language has lost so much of its vocabulary and meaning to its words. You say you love Starucks. You say you love someones outfit. Would you be willing to lay your life down for the Starbucks or outfit if someone was about to destroy it or throw it away? Of course not! Then why do we say we love those things if we love our spouse, family, children, God. We are putting our Frappe on the same level as God.
When the original text of the Bible was translated, English words were lacking. Since we already looked at love, let's tackle that one. Where we would say we love a movie, friend, God, 'make love', etc., the Hebrews and Greeks would have a separate word to distinguish between them.
Agape, Eros, Philia, Ahab, Hesed, and Raham, are all words for love that have different meanings. So when studying the Bible we need to look the meaning for the original words.
So how do I do that? Another good question. Let's look at the word glory. Glory is used a lot in the Bible (402 times actually, thank you concordance). A common theme in the Bible is when people would see the glory of God they would fall to the ground. Is out of reverence to the Lord or could there be more to it? Unless you already know the Hebrew and Greek for the word you are looking up this is where the internet would come in handy. Strong's dictionaries is listed alphabetically in their own language.
There are two way to go about this. You can Google the word and find the needed corresponding number or you can use the concordance to find the number. The only problem with using Strong's is that it only indexes words from the King James version so depending on your version of the Bible, your word may not be in there. I will walk you through both ways, both very easy!
Before we get started let me show you the different parts of Strong's. It is quite large and can be quite intimidating the first (or even 5th) time you use it.
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| (The black tabs make it SO much easier to navigate) |
Starting with Google
Simply google the word you are wanting to know more about. Greek and Hebrew options came up. See the numbers next to them? Those are the entry numbers in the dictionary.
Now that you have the numbers, find that number in the dictionaries. Looking at entry 3519 in the Hebrew, you can read all of the meanings for glory (Kavod/Kabod). I have underlined one I found interesting and used as part of my study. More about that below.
Starting with the Concordance
Find the word you are studying in the concordance and look at the number next to it. That is your dictionary number. Find that number entry and enjoy learning! Remember, this may not work for all words as Strong's indexes the King James Version.
It's that simple! Once you read the original meanings apply the word(s) to original verse and see if it changes the way you see the verse or if it has different meaning to you. I suggest writing out the original verse and then the new one with the word replaced with the other meanings. Let's look at what I did with my study...
I took the word glory. Glory is a common word and concept in the Bible. Glory is often referring to God's glory. In fact, as stated earlier, in many of the stories people would fall face down when they witnessed God's glory. Why is this? Looking at the above underlined definition for glory, it can refer to 'the great physical weight of a thing.'
Did you know that? I didn't before I read it. Well, this sheds some new light on the stories of people falling from God's glory. If His glory, or the weight of his majesty, was upon you wouldn't you fall down too? How cool is that? Now read the scripture about glory, remembering the meanings, and have new thoughts about them.
This is a good way to study if you are stuck in a rut. We all get there at some point. You don't know what to study anymore and you feel like you have been reading the same thing over and over. Well, maybe you should start looking at it from a different perspective. Look up each of the words in the dictionaries and see if it changes the meanings any.
What have you looked up lately? Any troubles working with the dictionaries? Please share what you find out!
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