Something said
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through theConnect page. Screenshots are helpful.
Emer is a Hebrew noun for something spoken: an utterance, saying, speech, or word. It may name Moses' public words, wisdom's counsel, pleasant speech that brings healing, prayer offered before God, or divine words that people reject.
Reader summary
Full entry for אֵמֶר (H561) · Open the biblical lexicon
Emer is a Hebrew noun for something spoken: an utterance, saying, speech, or word. It may name Moses' public words, wisdom's counsel, pleasant speech that brings healing, prayer offered before God, or divine words that people reject.
The BSB source-word alignment has 49 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include the words (9), words (6), My words (5), by the words (3), His words (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 49:21. Its strongest book concentrations include Proverbs (22), Job (11), Psalms (7), Isaiah (2).
Emer is a Hebrew noun for something spoken: an utterance, saying, speech, or word. It may name Moses' public words, wisdom's counsel, pleasant speech that brings healing, prayer offered before God, or divine words that people reject. The noun does not make every human statement true, inspired, gentle, or effective merely because it has been spoken. Psalm 19 joins the words of the mouth to the meditation of the heart and submits both to the Lord.
Proverbs 16 commends pleasant words without teaching that pleasantness can replace truth or justice. Psalm 107 shows that words from God may be resisted with serious consequences. Teachers should therefore ask who speaks, to whom, in what setting, and with what moral authority. Biblical speech is accountable speech: it may nourish, instruct, pray, testify, deceive, rebel, or wound according to its content, source, intention, and use.
Emer names an utterance or saying across poetry, wisdom, covenant instruction, and prayer, so the speaker and immediate context determine its authority and effect.
Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Moses summons heaven and earth to hear his covenant song, placing his spoken words inside a public witness setting.
Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
The proverb praises speech whose fitting pleasantness nourishes hearers, rather than treating charm as proof that every claim is true.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
The psalmist offers outward speech and inward reflection together for God's approval, joining language to accountable worship.
Because they rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.
Here divine words carry covenant authority, and the people's suffering is connected to deliberate rejection of God's counsel.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. something said
something said BDB: utterance Usage: answer, × appointed unto him, saying, speech, word.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
אֵמֶר is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
The Bible treats words as morally weighty without treating language as magic. Moses speaks before covenant witnesses, wisdom commends pleasant speech that nourishes, the psalmist asks God to examine both mouth and heart, and rebels reject the words of the Most High. These uses call the church to hear God's revealed counsel and to practice speech shaped by truth, love, repentance, and responsibility.
Pleasant words can bring genuine comfort, but attractive language can also conceal falsehood or manipulation. Strong language can tell necessary truth, but severity is not evidence of faithfulness. The decisive questions concern who is speaking, what is said, whether it agrees with God's truth, and how it serves the neighbor. Teachers should resist formulas that promise control through verbal declarations.
Christian speech is offered under God's judgment and mercy: it confesses Christ, blesses rather than curses, tells the truth, protects the vulnerable, and seeks repair when words have harmed.
Ps.19.14
The noun refers broadly to something said. Its lexical identity does not distinguish divine from human speech or true from false speech; grammar, speaker, and discourse supply those judgments.
Jesus teaches that words reveal the heart and that people are accountable for careless speech, while the apostles call believers to truthful, gracious, edifying language. These themes continue the moral accountability of utterance without making H561 a direct lexical bridge to one Greek term.