ἐπισκιάζω
to overshadow
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-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.
- 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).
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- 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
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 1 time (20%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 5 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G1982 appears — 5 distinct verses across 4 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
- Luke 1:35 ἐπισκιάσει fut act ind 3sg The angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.
- Luke 9:34 ἐπεσκίαζεν impf act ind 3sg While he said these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered into the cloud.
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.
επισκιαζω (episkiázō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to overshadow.” The Greek New Testament uses it only 5 verses. Luke dominates its distribution — 2 of 5 verses. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 17:5. Sharing its root, it stands alongside επι, επαγγελλω and επαγω. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G1982 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 →
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.
- Gospels 4 verses · 80%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 3 verses · 60%
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: Overshadowed 3×
- American Standard Version: Overshadowed 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Enveloped 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Overshadowed 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G1982 across 5 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G1982 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 G1982 across 5 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G1982 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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.
- to throw a shadow upon, to envelop in a shadow, to overshadow
Word origin
Derived from επι (epí) (G1909) — upon.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G1982 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐπεσκίαζεν epeskíazen | Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 9:34 | 1 |
| ἐπεσκίασεν epeskíasen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 17:5 | 1 |
| ἐπισκιάζουσα episkiázousa | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Mark 9:7 | 1 |
| ἐπισκιάσει episkiásei | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 1:35 | 1 |
| ἐπισκιάσῃ episkiásē | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 5:15 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G1982, 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 επισκιαζω appears 4 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 4 verses in 3 books.
- 4
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 4
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 40:32 ἐπισκιάζω
- Psalms 90:4 ἐπισκιάζω
- Proverbs 18:11 ἐπισκιάζω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G1982) 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.
- Exodus 40:32 ἐπισκιάζω When they went into the tent of meeting, and when they came near to the altar, they washed, as Yahweh commanded Moses.
- Psalms 90:4 ἐπισκιάζω For a thousand years in your sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, As a watch in the night.
- Psalms 139:8 ἐπισκιάζω If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there!
- Proverbs 18:11 ἐπισκιάζω The rich man's wealth is his strong city, Like an unscalable wall in his own imagination.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G1982) 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.
