θεμέλιος
foundation
‘foundation’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Accusative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
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.”
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine 8 times (50%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine 2 times (13%)
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 2 times (13%)
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter 1 time (6%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine 1 time (6%)
- Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 1 time (6%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (6%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 16 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G2310 appears — 15 distinct verses across 9 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.
Luke 3 verses
- Luke 6:48 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it was founded on the rock.
- Luke 6:49 θεμελίου n gen sg masc But he who hears, and doesn't do, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great."
- Luke 14:29 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc Or perhaps, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, everyone who sees begins to mock him,
Acts 1 verse
Romans 1 verse
1 Corinthians 3 verses
- 1 Corinthians 3:10 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it.
- 1 Corinthians 3:11 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 3:12 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble;
Ephesians 1 verse
1 Timothy 1 verse
2 Timothy 1 verse
Hebrews 2 verses
- Hebrews 6:1 θεμέλιον n acc sg masc Therefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on to perfection--not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God,
- Hebrews 11:10 θεμελίους n acc pl masc For he looked for the city which has the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Revelation 2 verses
- Revelation 21:14 θεμελίους n acc pl masc The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
- Revelation 21:19 θεμέλιοι θεμέλιος n nom pl masc n nom sg masc The foundations of the city's wall were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
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.
θεμελιος (themélios) is a Greek adjective most often rendered “foundation.” Scripture first uses it in Luke 6:48. It turns up in 15 verses across 9 books, an uncommon footprint. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. It clusters with τιθημι, θηκη and θησαυρος under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2310 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 9 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 9 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 15 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Luke 3 verses 20%
- 1 Corinthians 3 verses 20%
- Hebrews 2 verses 13%
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 15 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 47%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 27%
- Gospels 3 verses · 20%
- Johannine 2 verses · 13%
- Hebrews 2 verses · 13%
- Revelation 2 verses · 13%
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: Foundation 12×, Foundations 4×
- American Standard Version: Foundation 11×, Foundations 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Foundation 12×, Foundations 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Foundation 12×, Foundations 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2310 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2310 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2310 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2310 across 17 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 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.
- laid down as a foundation, the foundation (of a building, wall, city)
- metaph. the foundations, beginnings, first principals
Word origin
Derived from τιθημι (títhēmi) (G5087) — to place.
From a derivative of G5087 ; something put down that is a substruction (of a building etc.) (literally or figuratively): - foundation.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G2310 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| θεμέλιον themélion | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 6:48 | 8 |
| θεμέλιος themélios | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | 2 Timothy 2:19 | 2 |
| θεμελίους themelíous | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | Hebrews 11:10 | 2 |
| θεμέλια themélia | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Acts 16:26 | 1 |
| θεμέλιοι themélioi | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Revelation 21:19 | 1 |
| θεμελίου themelíou | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Luke 6:49 | 1 |
| θεμελίῳ themelíō | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Ephesians 2:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2310, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 5 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word θεμελιος appears 6 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 6 verses in 5 books.
- 6
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 6
- 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
- Deuteronomy 32:22 θεμέλιος
- 1 Kings 6:1 θεμέλιος
- Ezra 4:12 θεμέλιος
- Job 22:16 θεμέλιος
- Psalms 136:7 θεμέλιος
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2310) 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.
- Deuteronomy 32:22 θεμέλιος For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol, Devours the earth with its increase, Sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
- 1 Kings 6:1 θεμέλιος It happened in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Ziv, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of Yahweh.
- Ezra 4:12 θεμέλιος Be it known to the king, that the Jews who came up from you are come to us to Jerusalem; they are building the rebellious and the bad city, and have finished the walls, and repaired the foundations.
- Ezra 5:16 θεμέλιος Then came the same Sheshbazzar, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Jerusalem: and since that time even until now has it been in building, and yet it is not completed.
- Job 22:16 θεμέλιος Who were snatched away before their time, Whose foundation was poured out as a stream,
- Psalms 136:7 θεμέλιος To him who made the great lights; For his loving kindness endures forever:
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2310) 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.
