ἀγαθός
good
‘good’ is one of 5 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Dative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
Case
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Vocative
- The case of direct address (“O Lord”).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
1 verse where G18 appears in the Dative case in the Book of Acts. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Acts
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.
αγαθος — transliterated agathós — is a Greek adjective carrying the sense “good.” Thayer's distinguishes 5 senses for it. Spanning 91 verses in 21 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Greek New Testament. Its earliest occurrence is Matthew 5:45. Sharing its root, it stands alongside αγαθοεργεω, αγαθοποιος and αγαθωσυνη. 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 G18 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 →
- 91
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 91 distinct verses.
- 21 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 21 of 27 New Testament books.
- #160
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 160 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 91 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 91 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 45 verses · 49%
- Gospels 31 verses · 34%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 16 verses · 18%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 9 verses · 10%
- Johannine 4 verses · 4%
- Hebrews 3 verses · 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: Good 65×, Is good 10×, Good things 9×
- American Standard Version: Good 64×, Is good 11×, Good things 9×
- Berean Standard Bible: Good 78×, Good things 7×, Clear 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Good 83×, Good things 12×, Is good 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G18 across 100 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G18 across 99 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 G18 across 99 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G18 across 103 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.
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.
- of good constitution or nature
- useful, salutary
- good, pleasant, agreeable, joyful, happy
- excellent, distinguished
- upright, honourable
Word origin
Origin: a primary word
A primary word; good (in any sense often as noun): - benefit good (-s things) well. Compare G2570 .
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 22 distinct written forms G18 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G18, 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
- αγαθοεργεω agathoergéō G14 to do good
- αγαθοποιος agathopoiós G17 good
- αγαθωσυνη agathōsýnē G19 goodness
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αγαθος appears 401 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 361 verses in 29 books.
- 401
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 361
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 29 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 29 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 24:10 ἀγαθός
- Exodus 3:8 ἀγαθός
- Numbers 10:32 ἀγαθός
- Deuteronomy 1:25 ἀγαθός
- Joshua 23:13 ἀγαθός
- Judges 8:35 ἀγαθός
- Ruth 2:22 ἀγαθός
- 1 Samuel 1:8 ἀγαθός
- 2 Samuel 2:6 ἀγαθός
- 1 Kings 1:42 ἀγαθός
- 2 Kings 2:19 ἀγαθός
- 1 Chronicles 4:40 ἀγαθός
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G18) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 361. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 24:10 ἀγαθός The servant took ten camels, of his master's camels, and departed, having all goodly things of his master's in his hand. He arose, and went to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.
- Genesis 45:18 ἀγαθός Take your father and your households, and come to me, and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land.'
- Genesis 45:20 ἀγαθός Also, don't concern yourselves about your belongings, for the good of all of the land of Egypt is yours."
- Genesis 45:23 ἀγαθός To his father, he sent after this manner: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provision for his father by the way.
- Genesis 50:20 ἀγαθός As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save many people alive.
- Exodus 3:8 ἀγαθός I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
- Exodus 18:9 ἀγαθός Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness which Yahweh had done to Israel, in that he had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.
- Exodus 20:12 ἀγαθός "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which Yahweh your God gives you.
- Numbers 10:32 ἀγαθός It shall be, if you go with us, yes, it shall be, that whatever good Yahweh shall do to us, the same will we do to you.
- Numbers 14:7 ἀγαθός and they spoke to all the congregation of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceeding good land.
- Numbers 14:23 ἀγαθός surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of those who despised me see it:
- Numbers 32:11 ἀγαθός Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me:
- Deuteronomy 1:25 ἀγαθός They took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which Yahweh our God gives to us.
- Deuteronomy 1:35 ἀγαθός Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see the good land, which I swore to give to your fathers,
- Deuteronomy 1:39 ἀγαθός Moreover your little ones, whom you said should be a prey, and your children, who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there, and to them will I give it, and they shall possess it.
- Deuteronomy 3:25 ἀγαθός Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.
- Deuteronomy 4:22 ἀγαθός but I must die in this land, I must not go over the Jordan; but you shall go over, and possess that good land.
- Deuteronomy 6:11 ἀγαθός and houses full of all good things, which you didn't fill, and cisterns dug out, which you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees, which you didn't plant, and you shall eat and be full;
- Deuteronomy 6:18 ἀγαθός You shall do that which is right and good in the sight of Yahweh; that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land which Yahweh swore to your fathers,
- Deuteronomy 8:7 ἀγαθός For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;
- Deuteronomy 8:10 ἀγαθός You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which he has given you.
- Deuteronomy 9:4 ἀγαθός Don't speak in your heart, after that Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh does drive them out from before you.
- Deuteronomy 9:6 ἀγαθός Know therefore, that Yahweh your God doesn't give you this good land to possess it for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.
- Deuteronomy 11:17 ἀγαθός and the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and he shut up the sky, so that there shall be no rain, and the land shall not yield its fruit; and you perish quickly from off the good land which Yahweh gives you.
- Deuteronomy 26:11 ἀγαθός and you shall rejoice in all the good which Yahweh your God has given to you, and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the foreigner who is in the midst of you.
- Deuteronomy 28:11 ἀγαθός Yahweh will make you plenteous for good, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you.
- Deuteronomy 28:12 ἀγαθός Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow.
- Deuteronomy 28:47 ἀγαθός Because you didn't serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things;
- Deuteronomy 30:9 ἀγαθός Yahweh your God will make you plenteous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, for good: for Yahweh will again rejoice over you for good, as he rejoiced over your fathers;
- Deuteronomy 30:15 ἀγαθός Behold, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil;
- Deuteronomy 31:20 ἀγαθός For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then will they turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant.
- Deuteronomy 31:21 ἀγαθός It shall happen, when many evils and troubles are come on them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.
- Joshua 23:13 ἀγαθός know for a certainty that Yahweh your God will no more drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, and a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you.
- Joshua 23:15 ἀγαθός It shall happen, that as all the good things are come on you of which Yahweh your God spoke to you, so will Yahweh bring on you all the evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you.
- Judges 8:35 ἀγαθός neither shown they kindness to the house of Jerubbaal, [who is] Gideon, according to all the goodness which he had shown to Israel.
- Judges 9:2 ἀγαθός Please speak in the ears of all the men of Shechem, Whether is better for you, that all the sons of Jerubbaal, who are seventy persons, rule over you, or that one rule over you? Remember also that I am your bone and your flesh.
- Judges 9:11 ἀγαθός But the fig tree said to them, Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?
- Judges 10:15 ἀγαθός The children of Israel said to Yahweh, We have sinned: do you to us whatever seems good to you; only deliver us, we pray you, this day.
- Judges 11:25 ἀγαθός Now are you anything better than Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab? did he ever strive against Israel, or did he ever fight against them?
- Judges 15:2 ἀγαθός Her father said, I most assuredly thought that you had utterly hated her; therefore I gave her to your companion: isn't her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her, instead.
- Judges 18:9 ἀγαθός They said, Arise, and let us go up against them; for we have seen the land, and, behold, it is very good: and are you still? don't be slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land.
- Judges 18:19 ἀγαθός They said to him, Hold your peace, lay your hand on your mouth, and go with us, and be to us a father and a priest: is it better for you to be priest to the house of one man, or to be priest to a tribe and a family in Israel?
- Judges 19:24 ἀγαθός Behold, here is my daughter a virgin, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble you them, and do with them what seems good to you: but to this man don't do any such folly.
- Ruth 2:22 ἀγαθός Naomi said to Ruth her daughter-in-law, It is good, my daughter, that you go out with his maidens, and that they not meet you in any other field.
- Ruth 3:13 ἀγαθός Stay this night, and it shall be in the morning, that if he will perform to you the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman's part: but if he will not do the part of a kinsman to you, then will I do the part of a kinsman to you, as Yahweh lives: lie down until the morning.
- Ruth 4:15 ἀγαθός He shall be to you a restorer of life, and sustain you in your old age, for your daughter-in-law, who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.
- 1 Samuel 1:8 ἀγαθός Elkanah her husband said to her, Hannah, why weep you? and why don't you eat? and why is your heart grieved? am I not better to you than ten sons?
- 1 Samuel 1:23 ἀγαθός Elkanah her husband said to her, Do what seems you good; wait until you have weaned him; only Yahweh establish his word. So the woman waited and nursed her son, until she weaned him.
- 1 Samuel 2:24 ἀγαθός No, my sons; for it is no good report that I hear: you make Yahweh's people to disobey.
- 1 Samuel 2:26 ἀγαθός The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh, and also with men.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G18) 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.
