ἐπέχω
to hold upon
‘to hold upon’ is one of 3 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-tense verb in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- 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).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- 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”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
1 distinct verse where G1907 appears in the Aorist tense, across 1 book. 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 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.
“to hold upon” is the headline sense of the Greek verb επεχω (epéchō). A scarce word — 5 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. It concentrates in Acts, which alone accounts for 40% of its uses. First canonically at Luke 14:7, it enters the text early. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. See the sense tree, 5-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1907 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,648
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,648 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Acts 2 verses 40%
- Luke 1 verse 20%
- Philippians 1 verse 20%
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 5 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 3 verses · 60%
- Pauline corpus 2 verses · 40%
- Gospels 1 verse · 20%
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: He gave heed 1×, He marked 1×, Holding forth 1×
- American Standard Version: Gave heed unto 1×, He 1×, He marked 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Gave them his attention 1×, Noticed 1×, Pay close attention 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: He 1×, Holding forth 1×, Noticing 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1907 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1907 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G1907 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1907 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in Thayer's
The 3 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.
- to have or hold upon, apply, to observe, attend to
- to hold towards, hold forth, present
- delay, stop, stay
Word origin
Derived from επι (epí) (G1909) — upon.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G1907 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐπέσχεν epéschen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 19:22 | 1 |
| ἐπέχοντες epéchontes | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Philippians 2:16 | 1 |
| ἐπέχων epéchōn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 14:7 | 1 |
| ἐπεῖχεν epeîchen | Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 3:5 | 1 |
| ἔπεχε épeche | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | 1 Timothy 4:16 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1907, 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
- επαγγελλω epangéllō G1861 to announce
- επαγω epágō G1863 to bring upon
- επαγωνιζομαι epagōnízomai G1864 to contend
- επαθροιζω epathroízō G1865 to gather together
- επαινεω epainéō G1867 to approve
- επαινος épainos G1868 approval
- επαιρω epaírō G1869 to lift up
- επαισχυνομαι epaischýnomai G1870 to be ashamed
- επαιτεω epaitéō G1871 to ask repeatedly
- επακουω epakoúō G1873 to give ear to
- επακροαομαι epakroáomai G1874 to listen to
- επαν epán G1875 after
- επαναγκες epánankes G1876 necessarily
- επαναγω epanágō G1877 to lead back
- επαναμιμνησκω epanamimnḗskō G1878 to remind
- επαναπαυομαι epanapaúomai G1879 to rest upon
- επανερχομαι epanérchomai G1880 to return
- επανισταμαι epanístamai G1881 to raise up against
- επανορθωσις epanórthōsis G1882 correction
- επανω epánō G1883 above
- επαρκεω eparkéō G1884 to avail
- επαρχια eparchía G1885 office of governor
- επαυλις épaulis G1886 farm
- επαυριον epaúrion G1887 the next day
+110 more words share this root (not shown).
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 137 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word επεχω appears 12 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 12 verses in 7 books.
- 12
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 12
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 8:10 ἐπιἔχω
- Judges 20:28 ἐπιἔχω
- 1 Kings 22:6 ἐπιἔχω
- 2 Kings 4:24 ἐπιἔχω
- 2 Chronicles 18:5 ἐπιἔχω
- Job 18:2 ἐπιἔχω
- Jeremiah 6:11 ἐπιἔχω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1907) appears in the Greek Septuagint. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 8:10 ἐπιἔχω He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.
- Genesis 8:12 ἐπιἔχω He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she didn't return to him any more.
- Judges 20:28 ἐπιἔχω and Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, stood before it in those days), saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle against the children of Benjamin my brother, or shall I cease? Yahweh said, Go up; for tomorrow I will deliver him into your hand.
- 1 Kings 22:6 ἐπιἔχω Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, Shall I go against Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? They said, Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.
- 1 Kings 22:15 ἐπιἔχω When he was come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall we forbear? He answered him, Go up and prosper; and Yahweh will deliver it into the hand of the king.
- 2 Kings 4:24 ἐπιἔχω Then she saddled a donkey, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward; don't slacken me the riding, except I bid you.
- 2 Chronicles 18:5 ἐπιἔχω Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, four hundred men, and said to them, Shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? They said, Go up; for God will deliver it into the hand of the king.
- 2 Chronicles 18:14 ἐπιἔχω When he was come to the king, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ramoth-gilead to battle, or shall I forbear? He said, Go up, and prosper; and they shall be delivered into your hand.
- Job 18:2 ἐπιἔχω "How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
- Job 27:8 ἐπιἔχω For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, When God takes away his life?
- Job 30:26 ἐπιἔχω When I looked for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, there came darkness.
- Jeremiah 6:11 ἐπιἔχω Therefore I am full of the wrath of Yahweh; I am weary with holding in: pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1907) 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.
