ἔξεστι
it is lawful
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 29 times (91%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Neuter 3 times (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 32 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1832 appears — 30 distinct verses across 7 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 10 verses
- Matthew 12:2 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, "Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath."
- Matthew 12:4 ἐξὸν pres act ptcp nom sg neut how he entered into the house of God, and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
- Matthew 12:10 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg And behold there was a man with a withered hand. They asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" that they might accuse him.
- Matthew 12:12 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day."
- Matthew 14:4 ἔξεστίν pres act ind 3sg For John said to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her."
- Matthew 15:26 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg But he answered, "It is not appropriate to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
- Matthew 19:3 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Pharisees came to him, testing him, and saying, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?"
- Matthew 20:15 ἔξεστίν pres act ind 3sg Isn't it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?'
- Matthew 22:17 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Tell us therefore, what do you think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"
- Matthew 27:6 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg The chief priests took the pieces of silver, and said, "It's not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is the price of blood."
Mark 6 verses
- Mark 2:24 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg The Pharisees said to him, "Behold, why do they do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day?"
- Mark 2:26 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the show bread, which it is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and gave also to those who were with him?"
- Mark 3:4 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?" But they were silent.
- Mark 6:18 ἔξεστίν pres act ind 3sg For John said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."
- Mark 10:2 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"
- Mark 12:14 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg When they had come, they asked him, "Teacher, we know that you are honest, and don't defer to anyone; for you aren't partial to anyone, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?
Luke 5 verses
- Luke 6:2 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg But some of the Pharisees said to them, "Why do you do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day?"
- Luke 6:4 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg how he entered into the house of God, and took and ate the show bread, and gave also to those who were with him, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests alone?"
- Luke 6:9 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Then Jesus said to them, "I will ask you something: Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm? To save a life, or to kill?"
- Luke 14:3 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"
- Luke 20:22 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?"
John 2 verses
- John 5:10 ἔξεστίν pres act ind 3sg So the Jews said to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat."
- John 18:31 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg Pilate therefore said to them, "Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law." Therefore the Jews said to him, "It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,"
Acts 4 verses
- Acts 2:29 ἐξὸν pres act ptcp nom sg neut "Brothers, I may tell you freely of the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
- Acts 16:21 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg and set forth customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans."
- Acts 21:37 ἔξεστίν pres act ind 3sg As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he asked the commanding officer, "May I speak to you?" He said, "Do you know Greek?
- Acts 22:25 ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg When they had tied him up with thongs, Paul asked the centurion who stood by, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman, and not found guilty?"
1 Corinthians 2 verses
- 1 Corinthians 6:12 ἔξεστιν ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg pres act ind 3sg "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are expedient. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be brought under the power of anything.
- 1 Corinthians 10:23 ἔξεστιν ἔξεστιν pres act ind 3sg pres act ind 3sg "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are profitable. "All things are lawful for me," but not all things build up.
2 Corinthians 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.
“it is lawful” is the headline sense of the Greek verb εξεστι (éxesti). Older and newer Bibles part ways — “lawful” in the King James Version, “is it lawful” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It turns up in 30 verses across 7 books, a moderately common footprint. It concentrates in Matthew, which alone accounts for 33% of its uses. Its earliest occurrence is Matthew 12:2. See the sense tree, 30-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1832 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.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #438
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 438 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.
- Gospels 23 verses · 77%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 9 verses · 30%
- Pauline corpus 3 verses · 10%
- Johannine 2 verses · 7%
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: Lawful 16×, Is 11×, Is it lawful 5×
- American Standard Version: Lawful 15×, Is 11×, Is it lawful 8×
- Berean Standard Bible: Is it lawful 8×, Is unlawful 5×, Is lawful 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1832 across 40 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 4 further occurrences.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1832 across 42 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1832 across 31 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 1 sense 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.
- it is lawful
Word origin
Derived from εκ (ek) (G1537) — from.
Third person singular present indicative of a compound of G1537 and G1510 ; so also ἐξόν exon; neuter present participle of the same (with or without some form of G1510 expressed); impersonally it is right (through the figurative idea of being out in public): - be lawful let X may (-est).
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G1832 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἔξεστιν éxestin | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 12:2 | 24 |
| ἔξεστίν éxestín | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 14:4 | 5 |
| ἐξὸν exòn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 12:4 | 3 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1832, 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.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- εκβαλλω ekbállō G1544 to cast out
- εκβασις ékbasis G1545 exit
- εκγαμιζω ekgamízō G1547 to give in marriage
- εκγαμισκω ekgamískō G1548 to give in marriage
- εκγονον ékgonon G1549 offspring
- εκδαπαναω ekdapanáō G1550 to spend
- εκδεχομαι ekdéchomai G1551 to receive
- εκδηλος ékdēlos G1552 evident
- εκδημεω ekdēméō G1553 to depart
- εκδιδωμι ekdídōmi G1554 to give out
- εκδιηγεομαι ekdiēgéomai G1555 to relate
- εκδικος ékdikos G1558 without justice
- εκδιωκω ekdiṓkō G1559 to banish
- εκδοτος ékdotos G1560 delivered up
- εκδυω ekdýō G1562 to put off
- εκζητεω ekzētéō G1567 to seek out
- εκθαμβος ékthambos G1569 astonished
- εκθετος ékthetos G1570 exposed
- εκκαθαιρω ekkathaírō G1571 to cleanse
- εκκαιω ekkaíō G1572 to burn
- εκκακεω ekkakéō G1573 to be exhausted
- εκκεντεω ekkentéō G1574 to pierce
- εκκλαω ekkláō G1575 to cut off
- εκκλειω ekkleíō G1576 to shut out
+88 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 115 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
