ἀρήν

ἀμνός amnós · G286 · lamb

Both terms denote lambs, but ἀρήν specifically designates a male lamb while ἀμνός is unmarked for gender. The terms overlap in their core reference to young sheep but are not fully interchangeable due to ἀρήν's gender specification.

כֶּשֶׂב keseb · H3775 · lamb

Hebrew כֶּשֶׂב (keseb) denotes a lamb generally without gender specification, whereas Greek ἀρήν (arēn) specifically denotes a male lamb; ἀρήν serves as the Greek translation equivalent where the Hebrew context or broader scriptural usage implies or allows a male referent.

כַּר kar · H3733 · he-lamb, young ram, battering-ram

כַּר (kar, H3733) denotes specifically a ram or male lamb in its livestock sense, corresponding to ἀρήν (arḗn, G704)'s (ἀρήν) core designation of a male lamb, though כַּר (kar, H3733) carries broader semantic range including 'pasture' and 'captain' in other contexts—the cross-linguistic equivalence holds for the zoological male-sheep denotation where the terms genuinely align in the LXX rendering tradition.

Lamb4.24

In Luke 10:3, sending out the seventy, Jesus says, “behold, I am sending you out like lambs (árnas) in the midst of wolves,” naming the vulnerable young sheep as a picture of the disciples among a hostile world.

Words formed from the same root. They share a form, not always a meaning.

Meanings adapted from the UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament, © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0 and the UBS Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew (from the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew), © United Bible Societies, CC BY-SA 4.0; MACULA Greek Linguistic Datasets, available at https://github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-greek/, licensed CC BY 4.0; MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets © 2022-2024 by Biblica, Inc., CC BY 4.0. Westminster Leningrad Codex (tanach.us). OpenScriptures Hebrew Bible morphology (hb.openscriptures.org), CC BY 4.0.