ἐπιθυμέω
to desire
‘to desire’ 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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 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.
Grammatical forms 12 distinct
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 2 times (13%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (6%)
- Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (6%)
+4 more forms (4 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 16 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1937 appears — 16 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 2 verses
- Matthew 5:28 ἐπιθυμῆσαι aor act inf but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
- Matthew 13:17 ἐπεθύμησαν aor act ind 3pl For most assuredly I tell you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things which you see, and didn't see them; and to hear the things which you hear, and didn't hear them.
Luke 4 verses
- Luke 15:16 ἐπεθύμει impf act ind 3sg He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.
- Luke 16:21 ἐπιθυμῶν pres act ptcp nom sg masc and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores.
- Luke 17:22 ἐπιθυμήσετε fut act ind 2pl He said to the disciples, "The days will come, when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.
- Luke 22:15 ἐπεθύμησα aor act ind 1sg He said to them, "I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,
Acts 1 verse
Romans 2 verses
- Romans 7:7 ἐπιθυμήσεις fut act ind 2sg What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! However, I wouldn't have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn't have known coveting, unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."
- Romans 13:9 ἐπιθυμήσεις fut act ind 2sg For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not give false testimony," "You shall not covet," and whatever other commandments there are, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
1 Corinthians 1 verse
Galatians 1 verse
1 Timothy 1 verse
Hebrews 1 verse
James 1 verse
1 Peter 1 verse
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.
επιθυμεω (epithyméō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to desire.” It first appears in Matthew 5:28. Spanning 16 verses in 11 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. Luke dominates its distribution — 4 of 16 verses. Its lexical range runs to 3 senses. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1937 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 →
- 16
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 16 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 of 27 New Testament books.
- #726
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 726 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 16 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 16 distinct verses.
- Gospels 6 verses · 38%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 5 verses · 31%
- Pauline corpus 5 verses · 31%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 2 verses · 13%
- Johannine 1 verse · 6%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 6%
- Revelation 1 verse · 6%
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: Covet 2×, Thou shalt 2×
- American Standard Version: Covet 2×, Desire 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Do not covet 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Covet 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1937 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 14 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1937 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 G1937 across 15 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 13 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 G1937 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 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 turn upon a thing
- to have a desire for, long for, to desire
- of those who seek things forbidden
Word origin
Derived from επι (epí) (G1909) — upon.
Forms in the corpus
The 12 distinct written forms G1937 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1937, 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).
Derived from this word
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 139 — 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 επιθυμεω appears 36 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 33 verses in 16 books.
- 36
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 33
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 16 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 16 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 31:30 ἐπιθυμέω
- Exodus 20:17 ἐπιθυμέω
- Numbers 11:4 ἐπιθυμέω
- Deuteronomy 5:21 ἐπιθυμέω
- 1 Samuel 2:16 ἐπιθυμέω
- 2 Samuel 3:21 ἐπιθυμέω
- 1 Kings 11:37 ἐπιθυμέω
- 1 Chronicles 11:17 ἐπιθυμέω
- 2 Chronicles 8:6 ἐπιθυμέω
- Job 33:20 ἐπιθυμέω
- Psalms 44:12 ἐπιθυμέω
- Proverbs 21:26 ἐπιθυμέω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1937) 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 31:30 ἐπιθυμέω Now, you want to be gone, because you sore longed after your father's house, but why have you stolen my gods?"
- Genesis 49:14 ἐπιθυμέω "Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between the saddlebags.
- Exodus 20:17 ἐπιθυμέω "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."
- Exodus 34:24 ἐπιθυμέω For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders; neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before Yahweh, your God, three times in the year.
- Numbers 11:4 ἐπιθυμέω The mixed multitude that was among them lusted exceedingly: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
- Deuteronomy 5:21 ἐπιθυμέω "Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife; neither shall you desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his man-servant, or his maid-servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's."
- Deuteronomy 7:25 ἐπιθυμέω The engraved images of their gods shall you burn with fire: you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it to you, lest you be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.
- Deuteronomy 12:20 ἐπιθυμέω When Yahweh your God shall enlarge your border, as he has promised you, and you shall say, I will eat flesh, because your soul desires to eat flesh; you may eat flesh, after all the desire of your soul.
- Deuteronomy 14:26 ἐπιθυμέω and you shall bestow the money for whatever your soul desires, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatever your soul asks of you; and you shall eat there before Yahweh your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your household.
- Deuteronomy 18:6 ἐπιθυμέω If a Levite comes from any of your gates out of all Israel, where he lives as a foreigner, and comes with all the desire of his soul to the place which Yahweh shall choose;
- 1 Samuel 2:16 ἐπιθυμέω If the man said to him, They will surely burn the fat first, and then take as much as your soul desires; then he would say, No, but you shall give it me now: and if not, I will take it by force.
- 1 Samuel 20:4 ἐπιθυμέω Then said Jonathan to David, Whatever your soul desires, I will even do it for you.
- 2 Samuel 3:21 ἐπιθυμέω Abner said to David, I will arise and go, and will gather all Israel to my lord the king, that they may make a covenant with you, and that you may reign over all that your soul desires. David sent Abner away; and he went in peace.
- 2 Samuel 23:15 ἐπιθυμέω David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!
- 1 Kings 11:37 ἐπιθυμέω I will take you, and you shall reign according to all that your soul desires, and shall be king over Israel.
- 1 Chronicles 11:17 ἐπιθυμέω David longed, and said, Oh that one would give me water to drink of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!
- 2 Chronicles 8:6 ἐπιθυμέω and Baalath, and all the store-cities that Solomon had, and all the cities for his chariots, and the cities for his horsemen, and all that Solomon desired to build for his pleasure in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.
- Job 33:20 ἐπιθυμέω So that his life abhors bread, And his soul dainty food.
- Psalms 44:12 ἐπιθυμέω You sell your people for nothing, And have gained nothing from their sale.
- Psalms 105:14 ἐπιθυμέω He allowed no one to do them wrong. Yes, he reproved kings for their sakes,
- Psalms 118:20 ἐπιθυμέω This is the gate of Yahweh; The righteous will enter into it.
- Psalms 118:40 ἐπιθυμέω
- Proverbs 21:26 ἐπιθυμέω There are those who covet greedily all the day long; But the righteous give and don't withhold.
- Proverbs 23:3 ἐπιθυμέω Don't be desirous of his dainties, Seeing they are deceitful food.
- Proverbs 23:6 ἐπιθυμέω Don't eat the food of him who has a stingy eye, And don't crave his delicacies:
- Proverbs 24:1 ἐπιθυμέω Don't be envious of evil men; Neither desire to be with them:
- Ecclesiastes 6:2 ἐπιθυμέω a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
- Song of Solomon 2:3 ἐπιθυμέω As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, So is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, His fruit was sweet to my taste.
- Isaiah 1:29 ἐπιθυμέω For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, And you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen.
- Isaiah 26:9 ἐπιθυμέω With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you earnestly: for when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
- Isaiah 43:24 ἐπιθυμέω You have bought me no sweet cane with money, neither have you filled me with the fat of your sacrifices; but you have burdened me with your sins, you have wearied me with your iniquities.
- Isaiah 58:11 ἐπιθυμέω and Yahweh will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in dry places, and make strong your bones; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters don't fail.
- Jeremiah 17:16 ἐπιθυμέω As for me, I have not hurried from being a shepherd after you; neither have I desired the woeful day; you know: that which came out of my lips was before your face.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1937) 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.
