3 Word Studies to Help You Dig Deeper into Scripture

In Hebrew, God’s instruction for His people is communicated with words that are far less legal and far more relational than the English rendering explains.

The word for commandment in the Ten Commandments passage found in Exodus 20 is דָּבָר dabar which means more literally “word.”¹ This is much less legal in nature than the sense we take away from the English word “commandment.” Many Hebrew scholars also believe that the modal tense used in the Ten Commandments passage communicated more of a future fulfillment, as in “you won’t kill” rather than the “you shall not murder” that we read in our English Bibles. This makes sense considering that God promised to write His law on our hearts and give us hearts of flesh in place of hearts of stone (Ezekiel 36:26).

For years, I had a legalistic view of God because of my takeaway from passages like this. He was a God of do’s and don’ts more than a Father giving guidance. And I was frustrated by the ways I could never live up to His commandments.

Sometimes, something is part of the truth, but there’s depth to it that makes it hard for our minds to wrap around. When we fall short of the whole truth, we are operating on something less than the truth that God promises will bring us freedom (John 8:32).

God most certainly is the Judge and will deliver justice. We most certainly are given directions in Scripture. There is wrong and right. But when we can hear the love, concern, and guidance in God’s voice instead of only hearing a contractual set of demands, we will follow those Ten Words differently. We will appreciate them differently. And we will honor the One who spoke them from a different place in our hearts.

As we dig through the other words that communicate God’s laws, we see other instances where the binding legality part of the meaning is highlighted over the relationship aspect to the instruction.

See how there is depth of definition to these words from Genesis 26:5:

“… because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws…”

Obeyed - שָׁמַע shama; to hear.

Kept - שָׁמַר shamar; to keep, watch, preserve. Also translated as “being careful.”

Charge - מִשְׁמֶרֶת mishmereth; a guard, watch, charge, function. Also translated as “duties."

Commandments - מִצְוָה mitsvah; commandment; also translated as prescription and tradition. Culturally, this word is used like we use the phrase “family traditions.”

Statutes - חֻקָּה chuqqah; something prescribed, an enactment, statute. This word is used as something that is meant to be followed for the purpose of creating a memorial for people to remember God and His work.

Law - תּוֹרָה torah; direction, instruction, law. This word also means “way,” which is quite beautiful when we consider that early Christianity was called The Way and that our Lord Jesus said He is The Way!

Looking up a word in the original language is easier than ever - truly, it’s nearly unfair considering how hard people that came before us worked to study Scripture. There are all kinds of apps that allow you to click a word and have the definition just pop up in a window. Whether you are studying with the aid of technology or not, the gold standard everyone uses for Bible word definitions is Strong’s Concordance. You will not regret the time you invest in learning to use this resource! It is like reading Scripture with a lamp next to you!

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For some years I had been very passionately praying for revival in my weary heart. I prayed renewal over myself, my husband, our church, the other women I knew who needed their hearts lifted and their burdens lightened. Oftentimes, this prayer wasn’t answered, or at least it seemed it was left unanswered. One day when I was rather frustrated with the Lord because renewal and revival were most certainly written as part of His will for His children and I could not understand why I didn’t see more happening in that regard, I decided to dig deeper into the Hebrew word for revival.

Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm and focuses on a variety of topics, but specifically highlights the theme of revival. In Hebrew, the word for revive, chayah, is used 16 times. The Psalmist begs for God to revive him according to His Word, His ways, and His love. Interestingly, that same Hebrew word chayah is used in a variety of contexts.

In Genesis 5:3 the word is used in the phrase “Adam lived 130 years” before the birth of Seth. In Joshua 6:25 the word is also used in the context of Rahab being “saved” from the destruction that came on the rest of Jericho. In 2 Kings 13:21 we find a most unusual account. A couple of guys were taking the body of their dead friend to the graveyard for burial. In the graveyard, some thieves were waiting to mug their next victims, who happened to be these guys burying their friend. Somehow (I can’t quite visualize how this all happens) in the scuffle, the friends toss the body of their dead friend into a nearby grave. They inadvertently tossed the body into the grave of Elijah the prophet. When the dead friend’s body touched the bones of Elijah, their friend sprang to life! The word there for springing to life is our same word for revival.

When I dug deeper into the meaning of the word, I realized that sometimes God works revival into our lives by simply giving us breath in our lungs once again for yet another day, like He did for Adam. Sometimes, He rides in on a white charger and swoops us up out of a situation and we ride off into the sunset of a new life, like Rahab. Then there’s the amazing life that surged through the dead body of a friend because his body touched the bones of Elijah.

I had been missing the handiwork of God because I expected it to look one certain way. Then I attributed my perceived absence of care to His character. But the misunderstanding was mine. I asked God to revive according to His word, His ways, and His love, but He would bring life to His children in His own fashion. And none of it was less miraculous just because it didn’t come the way I was expecting!

This word study method helped me uncover more of God’s handiwork in Scripture and in my own life. It might help you deepen your understanding of God’s word and ways too. You can use Strong’s Concordance for this, and also Englishman’s Concordance. All of these tools are readily available online. When you look a word up in Strong’s, there will be a little number in the entry; that number can be looked up in another section of the book (or with a click if you are using software) and it will show you all the instances that word is used in Scripture. It’s easy and so enlightening! Looking to see how a word is used across Scripture always gives me a fuller understanding of the word. It’s like seeing a photo in color instead of just black and white.

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“Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

The above Proverb is a perfect example of a Bible verse that gets tossed around outside its intended meaning. We could look up each word in the Hebrew dictionary, tally up the number of ways each word is used in Scripture, and still come up with the meaning we all have when we read it in English. However, the larger context of the word is that it is set in a collection of wise sayings. It’s not a promise. It’s a Dad writing down wisdom for his kids - and yes, this is God-anointed, Holy Spirit-breathed wisdom. But sometimes we see the undoing of things in Scripture that we expected to work like the law of gravity - and we let that misunderstanding break our heart and twist our faith.

I have personally taken quite a few principles of Scripture out of their intended context and turned them into something even more severe than the Ten Commandments! I’ve hurt myself doing that. God’s kids have a tendency to do this. We want so badly to do the right thing, to please our heavenly Father. And all that wanting bursts out of us by adding to the simplicity of what our Father told us. Going above and beyond His instruction isn’t like doing extra chores on a to-do list meant to please our spouse. When we add to God’s heart for us, we get painfully off course.

Scriptural principles are just that – principles. We ought not judge one another on how we live out the principles we see in Scripture or create new, legal commandments for ourselves out of them. We ought not make promises out of the principles either. It twists up our faith when we hang our hope on promises God didn’t explicitly make.

Good Bible students know to check the genre of a text before they dive in to study it because when we miss this basic step, we draw the wrong conclusions from the Word.

“For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

Scripture is like a sword. We have to learn how to use it or we might hurt ourselves or others by misusing it.

As you study God’s Word, use a Hebrew/Greek dictionary program to discover definitions and uses of the word. Use a Bible study program or Englishman’s Concordance to find more uses of the word to read it in context and get a fuller picture of the word’s meaning. Lastly, take a wide-angle view of the word by checking what kind of passage the context is set in.

1. Word meanings taken from Olive Tree Enhanced Strong’s Concordance. Olive Tree Software.

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