διαθήκη
covenant
‘covenant’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Genitive-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine 16 times (48%)
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 7 times (21%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine 5 times (15%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine 2 times (6%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine 2 times (6%)
- Noun, Genitive, Plural, Feminine 1 time (3%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 33 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1242 appears — 30 distinct verses across 11 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
Matthew 1 verse
Mark 1 verse
Luke 2 verses
Acts 2 verses
- Acts 3:25 διαθήκης n gen sg fem You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, 'In your seed will all the families of the earth be blessed.'
- Acts 7:8 διαθήκην n acc sg fem He gave him the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac, and circumcised him the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
Romans 2 verses
1 Corinthians 1 verse
2 Corinthians 2 verses
- 2 Corinthians 3:6 διαθήκης n gen sg fem who also made us sufficient as servants of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
- 2 Corinthians 3:14 διαθήκης n gen sg fem But their minds were hardened, for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains, because in Christ it passes away.
Galatians 3 verses
- Galatians 3:15 διαθήκην n acc sg fem Brothers, I speak like men. Though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been confirmed, no one makes it void, or adds to it.
- Galatians 3:17 διαθήκην n acc sg fem Now I say this. A covenant confirmed beforehand by God in Christ, the law, which came four hundred thirty years after, does not annul, so as to make the promise of no effect.
- Galatians 4:24 διαθῆκαι n nom pl fem These things contain an allegory, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children to bondage, which is Hagar.
Ephesians 1 verse
Hebrews 14 verses
- Hebrews 7:22 διαθήκης n gen sg fem By so much has Jesus become the collateral of a better covenant.
- Hebrews 8:6 διαθήκης n gen sg fem But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
- Hebrews 8:8 διαθήκην n acc sg fem For finding fault with them, he said, "Behold, the days come," says the Lord, "That I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
- Hebrews 8:9 διαθήκην διαθήκῃ n acc sg fem n dat sg fem Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; For they didn't continue in my covenant, And I disregarded them," says the Lord.
- Hebrews 8:10 διαθήκη n nom sg fem "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days," says the Lord; "I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be to them a God, And they will be to me a people.
- Hebrews 9:4 διαθήκης διαθήκης n gen sg fem n gen sg fem having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant;
- Hebrews 9:15 διαθήκης διαθήκῃ n gen sg fem n dat sg fem For this reason he is the mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, that those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
- Hebrews 9:16 διαθήκη n nom sg fem For where a last will and testament is, there must of necessity be the death of him who made it.
- Hebrews 9:17 διαθήκη n nom sg fem For a will is in force where there has been death, for it is never in force while he who made it lives.
- Hebrews 9:20 διαθήκης n gen sg fem saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you."
- Hebrews 10:16 διαθήκη n nom sg fem "This is the covenant that I will make with them: 'After those days,' says the Lord, 'I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;'" then he says,
- Hebrews 10:29 διαθήκης n gen sg fem How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
- Hebrews 12:24 διαθήκης n gen sg fem to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
- Hebrews 13:20 διαθήκης n gen sg fem Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus,
Revelation 1 verse
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.
At its core, διαθηκη (diathḗkē) means “covenant.” The King James Version’s older “testament” has given way to “covenant” in modern versions, as the renderings breakdown shows. It turns up in 30 verses across 11 books, a moderately common footprint. The word gravitates to Hebrews (47%), then Galatians and Luke. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1242 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 →
- 30
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 30 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 of 27 New Testament books.
- #433
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 433 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 30 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
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 30 distinct verses.
- Hebrews 14 verses · 47%
- Pauline corpus 9 verses · 30%
- Gospels 4 verses · 13%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 13%
- Johannine 1 verse · 3%
- Revelation 1 verse · 3%
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: Covenant 15×, Testament 13×, Covenants 3×
- American Standard Version: Covenant 25×, Covenants 3×, The 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Covenant 27×, Covenants 3×, Will 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Covenant 29×, A 6×, Covenants 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1242 across 33 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1242 across 38 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1242 across 33 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1242 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 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.
- a disposition…
- a compact, a covenant, a testament
Word origin
Derived from διατιθεμαι (diatíthemai) (G1303) — to make covenant.
From G1303 ; properly a disposition that is (specifically) a contract (especially a devisory will ): - covenant testament.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G1242 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| διαθήκης diathḗkēs | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Feminine | Matthew 26:28 | 16 |
| διαθήκη diathḗkē | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Luke 22:20 | 7 |
| διαθήκην diathḗkēn | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Feminine | Acts 7:8 | 5 |
| διαθήκῃ diathḗkē | Noun, Dative, Singular, Feminine | Hebrews 8:9 | 2 |
| διαθῆκαι diathē̂kai | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Feminine | Romans 9:4 | 2 |
| διαθηκῶν diathēkō̂n | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Feminine | Ephesians 2:12 | 1 |
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word διαθηκη appears 299 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 279 verses in 26 books.
- 299
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 279
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 26 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 26 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 6:18 διαθήκη
- Exodus 2:24 διαθήκη
- Leviticus 2:13 διαθήκη
- Numbers 10:33 διαθήκη
- Deuteronomy 4:13 διαθήκη
- Joshua 3:3 διαθήκη
- Judges 2:1 διαθήκη
- 1 Samuel 5:4 διαθήκη
- 2 Samuel 3:12 διαθήκη
- 1 Kings 2:26 διαθήκη
- 2 Kings 11:4 διαθήκη
- 1 Chronicles 11:3 διαθήκη
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1242) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 279. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 6:18 διαθήκη But I will establish my covenant with you. You shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
- Genesis 9:9 διαθήκη "As for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your offspring after you,
- Genesis 9:11 διαθήκη I will establish my covenant with you; neither will all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither will there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."
- Genesis 9:12 διαθήκη God said, "This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
- Genesis 9:13 διαθήκη I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be for a sign of a covenant between me and the earth.
- Genesis 9:15 διαθήκη and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters will no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
- Genesis 9:16 διαθήκη The rainbow will be in the cloud. I will look at it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
- Genesis 9:17 διαθήκη God said to Noah, "This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
- Genesis 15:18 διαθήκη In that day Yahweh made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates:
- Genesis 17:2 διαθήκη I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly."
- Genesis 17:4 διαθήκη "As for me, behold, my covenant is with you. You will be the father of a multitude of nations.
- Genesis 17:7 διαθήκη I will establish my covenant between me and you and your seed after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your seed after you.
- Genesis 17:9 διαθήκη God said to Abraham, "As for you, you will keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations.
- Genesis 17:10 διαθήκη This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
- Genesis 17:11 διαθήκη You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of a covenant between me and you.
- Genesis 17:13 διαθήκη He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
- Genesis 17:14 διαθήκη The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant."
- Genesis 17:19 διαθήκη God said, "No, but Sarah, your wife, will bear you a son. You shall call his name Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his seed after him.
- Genesis 17:21 διαθήκη But my covenant I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time in the next year."
- Genesis 21:27 διαθήκη Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech. Those two made a covenant.
- Genesis 21:32 διαθήκη So they made a covenant at Beersheba. Abimelech rose up with Phicol, the captain of his host, and they returned into the land of the Philistines.
- Genesis 26:28 διαθήκη They said, "We saw plainly that Yahweh was with you. We said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, even between us and you, and let us make a covenant with you,
- Genesis 31:44 διαθήκη Now come, let us make a covenant, you and I; and let it be for a witness between me and you."
- Exodus 2:24 διαθήκη God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
- Exodus 6:4 διαθήκη I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their travels, in which they lived as aliens.
- Exodus 6:5 διαθήκη Moreover I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.
- Exodus 19:5 διαθήκη Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine;
- Exodus 23:22 διαθήκη But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.
- Exodus 23:32 διαθήκη You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
- Exodus 24:7 διαθήκη He took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, "All that Yahweh has spoken will we do, and be obedient."
- Exodus 24:8 διαθήκη Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, "Look, this is the blood of the covenant, which Yahweh has made with you concerning all these words."
- Exodus 27:21 διαθήκη In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning before Yahweh: it shall be a statute forever throughout their generations on the behalf of the children of Israel.
- Exodus 31:7 διαθήκη the tent of meeting, the ark of the testimony, the mercy seat that is on it, all the furniture of the Tent,
- Exodus 31:16 διαθήκη Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.
- Exodus 34:10 διαθήκη He said, "Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been worked in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which you are shall see the work of Yahweh; for it is an awesome thing that I do with you.
- Exodus 34:12 διαθήκη Be careful, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be for a snare in the midst of you:
- Exodus 34:15 διαθήκη Don't make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;
- Exodus 34:27 διαθήκη Yahweh said to Moses, "Write you these words: for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel."
- Exodus 34:28 διαθήκη He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
- Exodus 39:14 διαθήκη The stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names; like the engravings of a signet, everyone according to his name, for the twelve tribes.
- Leviticus 2:13 διαθήκη Every offering of your meal offering you shall season with salt; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meal offering. With all your offerings you shall offer salt.
- Leviticus 24:8 διαθήκη Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before Yahweh continually. It is on the behalf of the children of Israel an everlasting covenant.
- Leviticus 26:9 διαθήκη "'I will have respect for you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and will establish my covenant with you.
- Leviticus 26:11 διαθήκη I will set my tent among you: and my soul won't abhor you.
- Leviticus 26:15 διαθήκη and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant;
- Leviticus 26:25 διαθήκη I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- Leviticus 26:42 διαθήκη then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
- Leviticus 26:44 διαθήκη Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God;
- Leviticus 26:45 διαθήκη but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.'"
- Numbers 10:33 διαθήκη They set forward from the Mount of Yahweh three days' journey; and the ark of the covenant of Yahweh went before them three days' journey, to seek out a resting-place for them.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1242) 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.
