We know many of you visiting our site have a favorite translation of the Bible—one that you are familiar with, have memorized, and internalized in your heart. We love that, and we want you to feel free to experience our stories using the translation of your choice.
To maintain a consistent voice throughout our resources, we would love to introduce you to a relatively new English translation: the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Its name comes from Acts 17:11: "Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if these teachings were true."
Every Scripture passage featured in Significant Stories is from the BSB translation. We appreciate its clear, straightforward text that is equally helpful for public reading, deep study, and sharing with others.
For centuries, monks painstakingly crafted illuminated manuscripts — surrounding each page of scripture with gold leaf, cross-references, and scholarly glosses, transforming the text into something both beautiful and deeply understood. The word illuminated meant both made beautiful and made clear.
Illuminated Word Study carries that same intention into the digital age. We have carefully aligned centuries of scholarly work — lexicons, concordances, dictionaries, cross-references, and semantic analyses — so that every resource is always turned to the right page, presenting their intersection right inside each verse. Click any verse, and the text opens to reveal its deepest layers.
What's Inside
Illuminated Word Study brings together three study dimensions, all accessible from a single click on any verse:
Interlinear — Word-by-word alignment of the English translation with the original Greek and Hebrew, with multiple translation sources and manuscript tradition notes.
Word Study — Click any word to explore a vertical chain of progressive study stations: identity and pronunciation, scholarly definitions, grammatical parsing, an interactive distribution sparkline showing every occurrence across the Bible, etymological roots, and Septuagint bridge connections. The study header stays pinned below the scripture controls as you scroll.
Verse Study — Compare how the verse reads across four centuries of English translation, explore cross-references with a visual arc diagram spanning Genesis to Revelation, read dictionary articles about the people, places, and concepts mentioned, and see geographic locations on a parchment-styled map.
How to Use
Click any verse to open its Illuminated Word Study view.
Word order — Text boxes default to English word order. Click Greek (NT) or Hebrew (OT) to switch to the original language order.
Hover a word — Highlights the corresponding word in both columns.
Click a word — Opens detailed word study and keeps matching words highlighted in both columns.
Translation Sources
Each column has its own selector to switch between translation sources independently.
English column — Choose between BSB (Berean Standard Bible) and KJV (King James Version). BSB provides curated word-level alignment; KJV words are linked via Strong's numbers.
Original language column — Choose between BSB interlinear data and the independent source texts: Nestle 1904 (Greek NT) or OSHB (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible, OT).
BSB + BSB — The only combination with a word-order sort toggle, since BSB has curated English-to-original word pairings.
Red letter — Words of Jesus appear in red in both BSB and KJV.
Word Study
Click any word to open its study panel — a vertical chain of six progressive stations that build from identity to context:
Identity — The word as it appears in the manuscript (inflected form), with transliteration, root form (shown with an arrow when different from the inflected form), Strong's number pill, and pronunciation guide.
Meaning — Brief definition (Dodson for Greek, Strong's for Hebrew), with expandable full scholarly entries from Abbott-Smith (Greek) or Brown-Driver-Briggs (Hebrew). Greek words also show Louw-Nida semantic domain categories.
Form — Parsing code with human-readable expansion, decoded morphology for Hebrew verb stems (OT) and Greek grammatical forms (NT), and manuscript variant indicators when editions disagree about a word's inclusion.
Across Scripture — An interactive sparkline showing every occurrence of the word across all 66 books of the Bible. Click any book bar to expand chapter-level detail, then click a chapter to see individual verse references with context from the BSB text. Verse references open the preview modal.
Roots — The etymological origin of the word, shown as inline mini study cards with their own identity, definition, and interactive sparkline. Root derivations work across testaments — a Greek word can trace back to a Hebrew origin.
Septuagint Bridge — For Hebrew words, shows the Greek translation chosen by the Septuagint translators, rendered as a mini study card with the Greek word's identity, definition, and NT distribution sparkline. This bridge connects the testaments — the same Greek word used in the Septuagint often reappears in the New Testament.
Additional notes:
Multiple Strong's — Some KJV words map to multiple original-language words. Each appears as an expandable section (first auto-expanded) with its own full study chain.
Manuscripts — 934 New Testament words are annotated with manuscript tradition data, indicating which critical editions include or omit the word.
Manuscript Traditions
The New Testament was hand-copied for centuries before the printing press. Scholars compare thousands of surviving manuscripts to reconstruct the original text. Different editorial teams weigh the manuscript evidence differently, producing distinct critical editions. When a word shows a manuscript marker, it means these editions disagree about whether that word belongs in the text.
TR — Textus Receptus. The "received text" compiled in the 16th century, based on late Byzantine manuscripts. The basis for the King James Bible and other Reformation-era translations.
BYZ — Byzantine Majority Text. Represents the reading found in the majority of surviving Greek manuscripts, which are predominantly from the Byzantine tradition.
RP — Robinson-Pierpont. A modern Byzantine majority text that follows the consensus reading of the Byzantine manuscript family.
WH — Westcott-Hort. A pioneering 19th-century critical text that prioritized the earliest Alexandrian manuscripts, shifting scholarship away from the Textus Receptus.
NE — Nestle. An early critical text that became the foundation for the Nestle-Aland editions. Based on comparing multiple 19th-century critical texts.
NA — Nestle-Aland. The standard modern critical text (currently in its 28th edition). Used by most Bible translators and scholars worldwide. Published by the German Bible Society.
SBL — SBL Greek New Testament. A critical text published by the Society of Biblical Literature, offering an alternative to the NA text with a transparent editorial methodology.
ECM — Editio Critica Maior. The most comprehensive critical apparatus available, cataloging variants from virtually all known manuscripts. An ongoing project by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research.
Definitions
Each word's definition draws from multiple scholarly lexicons, layered from brief to detailed.
Brief definition — A concise gloss of the word's meaning. Greek words use the Dodson lexicon; Hebrew words use Strong's definitions.
Full Definition — Expand to see a comprehensive scholarly entry. Greek words draw from Abbott-Smith's Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), with grammatical analysis, sense distinctions, and scripture references. Hebrew words draw from Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB, 1906), the standard reference Hebrew lexicon, with etymological and contextual detail.
Pronunciation — A phonetic guide to how the original word sounds.
Semantic Domains
Additional linguistic context appears below the definition depending on whether the word is Greek or Hebrew.
Greek words — Louw-Nida domains — Shows which conceptual category the word belongs to in the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains. Unlike traditional alphabetical lexicons, Louw-Nida organizes words by meaning — so words for "speak," "write," and "proclaim" all appear together under "Communication." This helps you find related words and understand a word's place in the broader semantic landscape. There are 93 top-level domains covering all NT vocabulary.
Hebrew words — LXX equivalents — Shows how the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, abbreviated LXX) rendered this Hebrew word. For example, the Hebrew אֱלֹהִים (Elohim, "God") was translated as θεός (theos) in the LXX. Click the Greek Strong's number to see its full occurrence data. The LXX translation choices are significant because New Testament authors, writing in Greek, often drew their Old Testament quotations from the Septuagint rather than translating directly from Hebrew.
Lexicon Sources
The definition and enrichment data draws from these scholarly sources:
Dodson — The Dodson Greek Lexicon. Brief, accessible definitions for 5,400+ Greek Strong's numbers. Provides the concise gloss shown for every Greek word.
Strong's — Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. James Strong's numbering system (1890) assigns a unique number to every Hebrew and Greek root word in the Bible. The Hebrew definitions from Strong's provide brief glosses for 8,600+ words.
Abbott-Smith — A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (G. Abbott-Smith, 1922). A scholarly one-volume lexicon with detailed sense analysis, grammatical notes, and extensive cross-references to classical and Septuagint usage. Covers 5,300+ Greek entries.
BDB — A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Brown, Driver, Briggs, 1906). The standard reference lexicon for Biblical Hebrew for over a century. Entries include etymology, cognate languages, and detailed analysis of how each word is used across the Old Testament. Matched to 5,600+ Strong's numbers.
Louw-Nida — Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains (Louw & Nida, 1988). Rather than alphabetical, this lexicon groups 5,300+ Greek words by meaning into 93 conceptual domains. Semantic domain data is sourced from the MACULA Greek linguistic annotations of the Nestle 1904 text.
LXX — Septuagint Greek equivalents. For 4,100+ Hebrew words, shows which Greek word the Septuagint translators chose, with occurrence counts. Sourced from the MACULA Hebrew linguistic annotations, which align the Masoretic Hebrew text with the Septuagint Greek.
Verse Study
Below the interlinear columns, tabs provide additional study resources for the selected verse.
Compare Translations
Click "Compare Translations" below the interlinear columns to see how the verse reads across four centuries of English translation.
Phrase alignment — A five-column grid aligning corresponding phrases from KJV (1611), ERV (1885), ASV (1901), WEB (2000), and BSB (2020) row by row, with yellow highlighting for phrases that differ from KJV.
Word-level differences — Expand the collapsible section to see each translation with word-level difference highlighting. Green highlights words that differ from KJV. Blue highlights words new to a later translation that weren't in its predecessor.
Word sync — Clicking a word in the interlinear columns outlines the same word across the compare panel, so you can trace it through all five translations.
Cross References
Click "Cross References" to see other passages related to this verse, shown in two views:
Arc diagram — A Bible-span visualization showing the verse's position across all 66 books. Arcs above the axis represent outgoing references (this verse points to), arcs below represent incoming references (other verses that point here). Arc color indicates which testament the other end is in — blue for Old Testament, red for New Testament. Section labels (Law, History, Poetry, etc.) mark groups along the axis. Hover any arc to see the reference; click to preview the passage.
Word-aware filtering — When you select a word in the interlinear, the arc diagram and reference lists automatically highlight cross-referenced passages where that same original-language word (Strong's number) appears. Bright arcs lead to chapters containing the word you're studying; dimmed arcs lead elsewhere. This reveals which cross-references share vocabulary with your selected word — connecting lexical study to cross-reference exploration. The filter clears when you deselect the word.
Most Referenced — The top 5 cross-references ranked by community votes (outgoing and incoming merged), representing the strongest connections recognized by scholars and readers.
Related Passages — Additional voted references beyond the top 5, collapsed by default.
Extended References — Unvoted references from the source data, for exhaustive study. Each tier shows direction labels ("Outgoing" / "Incoming") when both exist.
Click any reference — Opens a verse preview showing the passage text, with an option to navigate to the full chapter.
Dictionary
Click "Dictionary" to see encyclopedia entries for people, places, and concepts mentioned in the verse.
First-sentence previews — Each entry shows a brief preview of its opening sentence, so you can quickly scan what a term refers to before expanding.
Collapsible entries — Click a term to expand its full article. Entries range from brief definitions to multi-paragraph treatments with historical context.
Scripture links — References within dictionary articles are clickable, opening a verse preview of the cited passage.
Map
When a verse mentions identifiable places, click "Map" to see them on a parchment-styled map with terrain shading.
Place markers — Gold dots for settlements, blue for water features, triangles for mountains. Click a marker to highlight the corresponding place card.
Place cards — Each card shows the ancient name, modern identification, place type, and how many times the location appears across scripture. Click a card to fly to that marker on the map.
Data source — Geographic data from OpenBible Geocoding (CC-BY 4.0), covering 1,300+ ancient places with coordinates based on modern archaeological identifications.
Timeless Reflections
Below the study tabs, a collapsible "Timeless Reflections" section provides commentary from two public domain works spanning three centuries of biblical scholarship, presented as collapsible accordion sections.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Commentary (1871) — Scholarly and critical verse-by-verse analysis with grammatical observations and cross-references. Includes section introductions (Pentateuch, Poetical, Prophetical books), chronological reference tables (Parables, Miracles, Paul's Life), book introductions with author attribution (Jamieson, Fausset, or Brown), and section heading labels.
Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary (1706) — Full unabridged devotional and pastoral reflections with hierarchical sections: volume preface, Bible/Testament/section introductions, book introduction, chapter introduction, and verse commentary.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary (1706) — Condensed edition with book introduction, chapter outline, and verse commentary.
Verse Study Sources
TSK — Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Originally compiled by R.A. Torrey (1834–1928), the TSK is one of the most extensive cross-reference systems ever produced, with 344,000+ verse-to-verse connections across both testaments. References are ranked by community votes from the OpenBible.info project.
Easton's — Easton's Bible Dictionary (M.G. Easton, 1897). A classic reference with 3,900+ entries covering biblical names, places, customs, and theological concepts. Articles include extensive scripture citations linking entries to relevant passages throughout the Bible. Indexed to 22,000+ verse references for contextual lookup.
Translations
The comparison spans five translations that represent the major milestones in English Bible translation. Each built upon its predecessors while incorporating advances in manuscript scholarship.
KJV (1611) — King James Version. Commissioned by King James I and produced by 47 scholars. Translated from the Textus Receptus (Greek NT) and the Masoretic Text (Hebrew OT). Its language shaped English literature for centuries and remains the most widely printed Bible in history.
ERV (1885) — English Revised Version. The first major scholarly revision of the KJV, undertaken by a committee of British scholars over 14 years. Incorporated readings from older manuscripts discovered since 1611, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which predated the Byzantine manuscripts used for the KJV by several centuries.
ASV (1901) — American Standard Version. The American counterpart to the ERV, produced by the American revision committee. Known for consistently rendering the divine name as "Jehovah" and for more literal renderings than the ERV. Valued for study due to its word-for-word translation philosophy.
WEB (2000) — World English Bible. A public domain modern English translation based on the ASV, updated for contemporary readability while maintaining the ASV's literal translation philosophy. Replaces "Jehovah" with "Yahweh" for the divine name and uses modern pronouns throughout. An ongoing community-driven project freely available without copyright restrictions.
BSB (2020) — Berean Standard Bible. A modern translation based on the Nestle-Aland/UBS critical text (Greek NT) and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Hebrew OT). Balances literal accuracy with readability, incorporating over a century of additional manuscript discoveries and textual scholarship since the ASV.
The original-language source texts used in the interlinear view:
Nestle 1904 — Novum Testamentum Graece. Eberhard Nestle's Greek New Testament, a critical text that became the foundation for all subsequent Nestle-Aland editions. Now in the public domain, making it freely available for digital scholarship.
OSHB — Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible. A digital edition of the Westminster Leningrad Codex, the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible (dated 1008 CE). Includes full morphological parsing and lemma data for each word.
Data Completeness
The study data is comprehensive but not exhaustive. Here is a summary of coverage and known gaps.
Interlinear words — 441,000+ BSB words with original-language alignment covering all 31,086 verses. 382,000 KJV words, 138,000 Nestle 1904 Greek words, and 304,000 OSHB Hebrew words are linked via Strong's numbers.
Brief definitions — Available for all 14,196 Strong's numbers in the lexicon (5,500+ Greek via Dodson, 8,600+ Hebrew via Strong's).
Full definitions (Greek) — Abbott-Smith covers 5,300+ of 5,500 Greek entries (97%). A small number of rare or variant forms lack deep entries.
Full definitions (Hebrew) — BDB covers 5,600 of 8,600+ Hebrew entries (65%). The gap is primarily proper nouns and rare forms where BDB entries could not be matched to Strong's numbers. Coverage was improved using the OpenScriptures Lexical Index for direct BDB-to-Strong's mapping.
Louw-Nida domains — Available for 5,300+ Greek Strong's numbers (97%). Sourced from MACULA Greek annotations of the Nestle 1904 text.
LXX equivalents — Available for 4,100 of 8,600+ Hebrew Strong's numbers (47%). Not all Hebrew words appear in passages that have Septuagint parallels, and some particles and grammatical words lack meaningful Greek equivalents.
Cross-references — 344,000+ verse-to-verse connections. Most verses have at least one cross-reference, though some less-referenced passages may have none.
Dictionary — 3,900+ Easton's entries indexed to 22,000+ verse references. Coverage focuses on named persons, places, and key concepts. Many verses (especially those without named entities) will not have dictionary entries.
Manuscript variants — 934 New Testament words are annotated with manuscript tradition data. This covers the most significant textual variants but is not a complete critical apparatus.
KJV Morphology — Decoded morphology descriptions for all KJV words that have morphology codes. 136 Tyndale House codes covering Hebrew and Aramaic verb stems (OT), plus Robinson codes for Greek grammatical forms including declension suffixes (NT).
Commentaries — Two public domain commentaries spanning three centuries of biblical scholarship. Out of 31,086 total verses:
JFB (1871) — ~19,800 entries: verse commentary covering 30,637 verses (98.6%), 7 section introductions (4 prose essays + 3 chronological reference tables with scope-based retrieval), 49 book introductions with author attribution, and ~1,750 section heading labels extracted from the source text. Authored by Robert Jamieson (Genesis–Esther), A.R. Fausset (Job–Malachi, 1 Corinthians–Revelation), and David Brown (Matthew–Romans).
MH Complete (1706) — ~5,600 entries (4,300 verse-range + 66 volume prefaces + 7 scoped intro levels + 66 book introductions + 1,170 chapter summaries) covering 31,086 verses (100%). Complete coverage of all verses. Every book shows hierarchical intro levels: Holy Bible preface, Testament introduction, and section introduction (for Pentateuch, Historical, Minor Prophets, and Gospels).
MH Concise (1706) — ~5,200 entries (4,049 verse-range + 66 book introductions + 1,054 chapter outlines) covering 31,022 verses (99.8%) across 66 books. Remaining 64 uncovered verses are confirmed absent from the source text.
Map — 1,300+ ancient places geocoded to 8,700+ verse references. The Map tab appears only for verses that mention identifiable geographic locations. Coverage depends on OpenBible's identification database; some place names in poetic or metaphorical contexts may not be geocoded.
Red letter — Words of Jesus are marked in both BSB and KJV across the four Gospels, Acts, and Revelation. Coverage relies on the source data's attribution of direct speech.
Open Data & Attributions
All study data is sourced from open, freely available scholarly projects. The following attributions are provided in accordance with the Creative Commons licenses under which these works are shared. All licensed data has been parsed, reformatted, and integrated into our study database; no source data is redistributed in its original form.
Berean Standard Bible — Produced by Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee. Dedicated to the public domain. berean.bible
1“Next, have your brother Aaron brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, to serve Me as priests.2Make holy garments for your brother Aaron, to give him glory and splendor.3You are to instruct all the skilled craftsmen, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, to make garments for Aaron’s consecration, so that he may serve Me as priest.4These are the garments that they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. They are to make these holy garments for your brother Aaron and his sons, so that they may serve Me as priests.5They shall use gold, along with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and fine linen.
6They are to make the ephod of finely spun linen embroidered with gold, and with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn.7It shall have two shoulder pieces attached at two of its corners, so it can be fastened.8And the skillfully woven waistband of the ephod must be of one piece, of the same workmanship—with gold, with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and with finely spun linen.9Take two onyx stones and engrave on them the names of the sons of Israel:10six of their names on one stone and the remaining six on the other, in the order of their birth.11Engrave the names of the sons of Israel on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal. Then mount the stones in gold filigree settings.12Fasten both stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod as memorial stones for the sons of Israel. Aaron is to bear their names on his two shoulders as a memorial before the LORD.13Fashion gold filigree settings14and two chains of pure gold, made of braided cord work; and attach these chains to the settings.
15You are also to make a breastpiece of judgment with the same workmanship as the ephod. Construct it with gold, with blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, and with finely spun linen.16It must be square when folded over double, a span long and a span wide.117And mount on it a setting of gemstones, four rows of stones:1
In the first row there shall be a ruby, a topaz, and an emerald;18in the second row a turquoise, a sapphire, and a diamond;19in the third row a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst;20and in the fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper.
Mount these stones in gold filigree settings.21The twelve stones are to correspond to the names of the sons of Israel, each engraved like a seal with the name of one of the twelve tribes.22For the breastpiece, make braided chains like cords of pure gold.23You are also to make two gold rings and fasten them to the two corners of the breastpiece.24Then fasten the two gold chains to the two gold rings at the corners of the breastpiece,25and fasten the other ends of the two chains to the two filigree settings, attaching them to the shoulder pieces of the ephod at the front.26Make two more gold rings and attach them to the other two corners of the breastpiece, on the inside edge next to the ephod.27Make two additional gold rings and attach them to the bottom of the two shoulder pieces of the ephod, on its front, near its seam just above its woven waistband.28The rings of the breastpiece shall be tied to the rings of the ephod with a cord of blue yarn, so that the breastpiece is above the waistband of the ephod and does not swing out from the ephod.29Whenever Aaron enters the Holy Place, he shall bear the names of the sons of Israel over his heart on the breastpiece of judgment, as a continual reminder before the LORD.30And place the Urim and Thummim 1 in the breastpiece of judgment, so that they will also be over Aaron’s heart whenever he comes before the LORD. Aaron will continually carry the judgment of the sons of Israel over his heart before the LORD.
31You are to make the robe of the ephod entirely of blue cloth,32with an opening at its top in the center. Around the opening shall be a woven collar with an opening like that of a garment,1 so that it will not tear.33Make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn all the way around the lower hem, with gold bells between them,34alternating the gold bells and pomegranates around the lower hem of the robe.35Aaron must wear the robe whenever he ministers, and its sound will be heard when he enters or exits the sanctuary before the LORD, so that he will not die.36You are to make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it as on a seal:
HOLY TO THE LORD.137Fasten to it a blue cord to mount it on the turban; it shall be on the front of the turban.38And it will be worn on Aaron’s forehead, so that he may bear the iniquity of the holy things that the sons of Israel consecrate with regard to all their holy gifts. It shall always be on his forehead, so that they may be acceptable before the LORD.39You are to weave the tunic with fine linen, make the turban of fine linen, and fashion an embroidered sash.40Make tunics, sashes, and headbands for Aaron’s sons, to give them glory and splendor.41After you put these garments on your brother Aaron and his sons, anoint them, ordain them, and consecrate them so that they may serve Me as priests.42Make linen undergarments to cover their bare flesh, extending from waist to thigh.43Aaron and his sons must wear them whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting or approach the altar to minister in the Holy Place, so that they will not incur guilt and die. This is to be a permanent statute for Aaron and his descendants.