ἐπιτάσσω
to command
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).
- 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).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G2004 appears in the Book of Luke — 4 distinct verses. 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.
Luke
- Luke 4:36 ἐπιτάσσει pres act ind 3sg Amazement came on all, and they spoke together, one with another, saying, "What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!"
- Luke 8:25 ἐπιτάσσει pres act ind 3sg He said to them, "Where is your faith?" Being afraid they marveled, saying one to another, "Who is this, then, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?"
- Luke 8:31 ἐπιτάξῃ aor act subj 3sg They begged him that he would not command them to go into the abyss.
- Luke 14:22 ἐπέταξας aor act ind 2sg "The servant said, 'Lord, it is done as you commanded, and there is still room.'
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.
επιτασσω (epitássō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to command.” It first appears in Mark 1:27. It turns up in 10 verses across 4 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Mark, which alone accounts for 40% of its uses. From the same root come επι, επαγγελλω and επαγω. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2004 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,056
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,056 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Gospels 8 verses · 80%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 5 verses · 50%
- Pauline corpus 1 verse · 10%
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: Commanded 2×, He commandeth 2×
- American Standard Version: Command 3×, He commandeth 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: He commands 3×, Order 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Command 3×, He commands 3×, Commanded 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2004 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 G2004 across 11 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2004 across 10 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2004 across 12 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.
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 enjoin upon, order, command, charge
Word origin
Derived from επι (epí) (G1909) — upon.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G2004 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐπέταξεν epétaxen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Mark 6:27 | 3 |
| ἐπιτάσσει epitássei | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Mark 1:27 | 3 |
| ἐπέταξας epétaxas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | Luke 14:22 | 1 |
| ἐπιτάξῃ epitáxē | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular | Luke 8:31 | 1 |
| ἐπιτάσσειν epitássein | Verb, Present, Active, Infinitive | Philemon 1:8 | 1 |
| ἐπιτάσσω epitássō | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Mark 9:25 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2004, 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 138 — 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 επιτασσω appears 12 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 12 verses in 5 books.
- 12
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 12
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 49:33 ἐπιτάσσω
- Esther 1:8 ἐπιτάσσω
- Psalms 106:29 ἐπιτάσσω
- Ezekiel 24:18 ἐπιτάσσω
- Daniel 1:18 ἐπιτάσσω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2004) 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 49:33 ἐπιτάσσω When Jacob made an end of charging his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the spirit, and was gathered to his people.
- Esther 1:8 ἐπιτάσσω The drinking was according to the law; none could compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man's pleasure.
- Esther 3:12 ἐπιτάσσω Then were the king's scribes called in the first month, on the thirteenth day of it; and there was written according to all that Haman commanded to the king's satraps, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to the writing of it, and to every people after their language; in the name of king Ahasuerus was it written, and it was sealed with the king's ring.
- Esther 8:8 ἐπιτάσσω Write you also to the Jews, as it pleases you, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's ring; for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse.
- Esther 8:11 ἐπιτάσσω in which the king granted the Jews who were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, [their] little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey,
- Psalms 106:29 ἐπιτάσσω Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds. The plague broke in on them.
- Ezekiel 24:18 ἐπιτάσσω So I spoke to the people in the morning; and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
- Daniel 1:18 ἐπιτάσσω At the end of the days which the king had appointed for bringing them in, the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar.
- Daniel 2:2 ἐπιτάσσω Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the enchanters, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, to tell the king his dreams. So they came in and stood before the king.
- Daniel 2:46 ἐπιτάσσω Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, and worshiped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an offering and sweet odors to him.
- Daniel 3:19 ἐπιτάσσω Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: [therefore] he spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was wont to be heated.
- Daniel 3:20 ἐπιτάσσω He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, [and] to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2004) 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.
