Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

γίνομαι

to become

also: begin to be, receive being fuller range ↓

G1096 Strong's Greek
gínomai Transliteration
/ghin'-om-ahee/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 667 appearances

Compare with another word →

About this entry

At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.

The Greek verb γινομαι centers on the idea of “to become.” The King James Version usually renders it “was,” while modern versions prefer “happened” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 625 verses in 26 books, it ranks among the most common words of the Greek New Testament. Debuting at Matthew 1:22, it then recurs through the corpus. Thayer's distinguishes 5 senses; alongside “to become” it spans “begin to be” and “receive being”. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
arise
Modern gloss
to become
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G1096 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.

These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →

625
distinct verses
The word appears in 625 distinct verses.
26 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 26 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 1:22
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 1:22.
Revelation 22:6
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 22:6.
#28
by frequency
Top 50 most frequent Greek words (rank 28 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 625 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 294 · 47%
  • Acts 118 · 19%
  • Pauline Epistles 130 · 21%
  • General Epistles 52 · 8%
  • Revelation 31 · 5%

By traditional corpus

Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 625 distinct verses.

  • Gospels 294 verses · 47%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 246 verses · 39%
  • Pauline corpus 130 verses · 21%
  • Johannine 79 verses · 13%
  • Revelation 31 verses · 5%
  • Hebrews 28 verses · 4%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 24 verses · 4%

How translations render this word

Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).

  • King James Version: Was 94×, Came to pass 65×, Be 38×
  • American Standard Version: Came to pass 60×, Was 53×, Be 28×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Was 39×, Came 35×, Be 26×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Happened 71×, Happened that 57×, Became 48×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G1096 across 680 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Was” 94×
  • “Came to pass” 65×
  • “Be” 38×
  • “Were” 21×
  • “Came” 20×
  • “Was done” 19×
  • “Made” 17×
  • “Was come” 16×
  • “Is” 15×
  • “Was made” 14×
  • “Be done” 12×
  • “Arose” 11×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 112 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 29 further occurrences.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders G1096 across 682 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Came to pass” 60×
  • “Was” 53×
  • “Be” 28×
  • “Came” 27×
  • “Became” 23×
  • “Become” 19×
  • “Arose” 14×
  • “Is” 13×
  • “Was come” 13×
  • “Made” 12×
  • “God forbid” 10×
  • “Be ye” 9×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 122 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 2 further occurrences.

Berean Standard Bible Public Domain

Renders G1096 across 544 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Was” 39×
  • “Came” 35×
  • “Be” 26×
  • “Became” 26×
  • “Had happened” 16×
  • “Become” 14×
  • “Certainly not” 12×
  • “Has become” 12×
  • “Is” 12×
  • “Happen” 10×
  • “Were” 9×
  • “Will be” 7×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 127 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 85 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders G1096 across 755 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Happened” 71×
  • “Happened that” 57×
  • “Became” 48×
  • “Become” 36×
  • “Happen” 34×
  • “Be” 29×
  • “Was” 25×
  • “Came” 23×
  • “Having come” 22×
  • “Having become” 20×
  • “Having happened” 17×
  • “Had happened” 14×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 81 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.


Senses in Thayer's

The 5 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.

  1. to become, i.e. to come into existence, begin to be, receive being
  2. to become, i.e. to come to pass, happen
  3. to arise, appear in history, come upon the stage
  4. of miracles, to be performed, wrought
  5. to become, be made

Word origin

Origin: a prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb

Part of speech: Verb TDNT: 12:21,1

A prolonged and middle form of a primary verb; to cause to be (gen -erate) that is (reflexively) to become ( come into being ) used with great latitude (literally figuratively intensively etc.): - arise be assembled be (come -fall -have self) be brought (to pass) (be) come (to pass) continue be divided be done draw be ended fall be finished follow be found be fulfilled + God forbid grow happen have be kept be made be married be ordained to be partake pass be performed be published require seem be showed X soon as it was sound be taken be turned use wax will would be wrought.

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 85 distinct written forms G1096 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
ἐγένετο egéneto Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 7:28 177
γένηται génētai Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 5:18 45
γενέσθαι genésthai Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Infinitive Matthew 20:26 38
γέγονεν gégonen Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 1:22 30
γενομένης genoménēs Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Feminine Matthew 8:16 29
Ἐγένετο Egéneto Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 1:5 27
γίνεται gínetai Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 9:16 26
γενόμενος genómenos Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Mark 6:26 26
γίνεσθε gínesthe Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Matthew 6:16 22
γένοιτο génoito Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Optative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 20:16 16
ἐγένοντο egénonto Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 11:20 12
ἐγενήθη egenḗthē Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 21:42 12
ἐγενόμην egenómēn Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Acts 20:18 12
γίνεσθαι gínesthai Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Infinitive Luke 21:7 10
γενήσεται genḗsetai Verb, Future, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 18:19 10
γενομένου genoménou Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine Matthew 26:6 7
γένησθε génēsthe Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural Matthew 5:45 7
γενηθήτω genēthḗtō Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 6:10 7
γινέσθω ginésthō Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 22:26 7
ἐγενήθημεν egenḗthēmen Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Romans 9:29 7
γενόμενα genómena Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Neuter Matthew 18:31 6
γενόμενοι genómenoi Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Luke 1:2 6
γίνου gínou Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular Luke 19:19 5
γινόμενα ginómena Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Neuter Matthew 27:54 5
ἐγενήθησαν egenḗthēsan Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 11:23 5
ἐγενήθητε egenḗthēte Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Ephesians 2:13 5
γινόμενον ginómenon Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter Luke 23:8 4
γενόμενον genómenon Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Masculine Galatians 4:4 4
γέγονα gégona Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 1 Corinthians 9:22 4
γένωνται génōntai Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 4:3 4
γεγονέναι gegonénai Verb, Perfect, Active, Infinitive Luke 10:36 4
γεγονὸς gegonòs Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter Luke 2:15 4
γενομένην genoménēn Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Feminine Luke 23:19 4
γενόμεναι genómenai Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Feminine Matthew 11:21 4
ἐγένεσθε egénesthe Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Luke 16:11 4
γεγονός gegonós Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter Luke 8:35 3
γενομένοις genoménois Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Dative, Plural, Masculine Mark 16:10 3
γέγονας gégonas Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular John 5:14 3
γινομένης ginoménēs Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Feminine Mark 6:35 3
Γίνεσθε Gínesthe Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Galatians 4:12 2
Γενομένης Genoménēs Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Feminine Luke 4:42 2
γέγοναν gégonan Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Romans 16:7 2
γένωμαι génōmai Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 1st person, Singular 1 Corinthians 9:23 2
γεγονότες gegonótes Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Hebrews 7:20 2
γεγόναμεν gegónamen Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural Romans 6:5 2
γεγόνασιν gegónasin Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Hebrews 12:8 2
γεγόνατε gegónate Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Hebrews 5:11 2
γενήσεσθε genḗsesthe Verb, Future, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural John 8:33 2
γενηθέντες genēthéntes Verb, Aorist, Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Hebrews 10:33 2
γινόμενοι ginómenoi Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Acts 19:26 2
γινώμεθα ginṓmetha Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Subjunctive, 1st person, Plural Galatians 5:26 2
ἐγένου egénou Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular Luke 19:17 2
ἐγίνετο egíneto Verb, Imperfect, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Acts 2:43 2
Γέγονα Gégona Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 2 Corinthians 12:11 1
Γενομένων Genoménōn Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine Acts 21:17 1
γένηταί génētaí Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 18:12 1
γένοιτό génoitó Verb, Aorist, Middle deponent, Optative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 1:38 1
γίνονται gínontai Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Mark 6:2 1
γίνωνται gínōntai Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural 1 Corinthians 16:2 1
γεγενημένον gegenēménon Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter John 2:9 1

The 60 most common forms are shown; 25 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.


Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1096, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word γινομαι appears 1,711 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 1,567 verses in 37 books.

1,711
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
1,567
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
37 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 37 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1096) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 1,567. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1096) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.