θεμελιόω
to establish
‘to establish’ 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 Perfect-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
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Pluperfect
- A past action completed before another past point (“had written”).
Voice
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 2 times (40%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (20%)
- Verb, Pluperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 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 G2311 appears — 5 distinct verses across 5 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
Ephesians 1 verse
Colossians 1 verse
Hebrews 1 verse
1 Peter 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 establish” is the headline sense of the Greek verb θεμελιοω (themelióō). A scarce word — 5 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 7:25. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2311 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.
- 5 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 5 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
- Matthew 1 verse 20%
- Ephesians 1 verse 20%
- Colossians 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.
- Pauline corpus 2 verses · 40%
- Gospels 1 verse · 20%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 20%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 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: Grounded 2×, Was founded 2×
- American Standard Version: Grounded 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Establish 1×, Established 1×, Foundation was 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Founded 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2311 across 6 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 G2311 across 6 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2311 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2311 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 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.
- to lay the foundation, to found
- to make stable, establish
Word origin
Derived from θεμελιος (themélios) (G2310) — foundation.
From G2310 ; to lay a basis for that is (literally) erect or (figuratively) consolidate : - (lay the) found (-ation) ground settle.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms G2311 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| τεθεμελιωμένοι tethemeliōménoi | Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Ephesians 3:18 | 2 |
| θεμελιώσει themeliṓsei | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | 1 Peter 5:10 | 1 |
| τεθεμελίωτο tethemelíōto | Verb, Pluperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 7:25 | 1 |
| ἐθεμελίωσας ethemelíōsas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | Hebrews 1:10 | 1 |
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word θεμελιοω appears 37 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 36 verses in 12 books.
- 37
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 36
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Joshua 6:26 θεμελιόω
- 1 Kings 6:1 θεμελιόω
- 2 Chronicles 8:16 θεμελιόω
- Ezra 3:6 θεμελιόω
- Job 38:4 θεμελιόω
- Psalms 8:4 θεμελιόω
- Proverbs 3:19 θεμελιόω
- Song of Solomon 5:15 θεμελιόω
- Isaiah 14:32 θεμελιόω
- Amos 9:6 θεμελιόω
- Haggai 2:18 θεμελιόω
- Zechariah 4:9 θεμελιόω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2311) 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.
- Joshua 6:26 θεμελιόω Joshua charged them with an oath at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before Yahweh, that rises up and builds this city Jericho: with the loss of his firstborn shall he lay the foundation of it, and with the loss of his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it.
- 1 Kings 6:1 θεμελιόω 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.
- 1 Kings 7:47 θεμελιόω Solomon left all the vessels [unweighed], because they were exceeding many: the weight of the brass could not be found out.
- 1 Kings 16:34 θεμελιόω In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation of it with the loss of Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates of it with the loss of his youngest son Segub, according to the word of Yahweh, which he spoke by Joshua the son of Nun.
- 2 Chronicles 8:16 θεμελιόω Now all the work of Solomon was prepared to the day of the foundation of the house of Yahweh, and until it was finished. [So] the house of Yahweh was completed.
- 2 Chronicles 31:7 θεμελιόω In the third month they began to lay the foundation of the heaps, and finished them in the seventh month.
- Ezra 3:6 θεμελιόω From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings to Yahweh: but the foundation of the temple of Yahweh was not yet laid.
- Ezra 3:10 θεμελιόω When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of Yahweh, they set the priests in their clothing with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Yahweh, after the order of David king of Israel.
- Ezra 7:9 θεμελιόω For on the first [day] of the first month began he to go up from Babylon; and on the first [day] of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God on him.
- Job 38:4 θεμελιόω "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if you have understanding.
- Psalms 8:4 θεμελιόω What is man, that you think of him? The son of man, that you care for him?
- Psalms 23:2 θεμελιόω He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
- Psalms 47:9 θεμελιόω The princes of the peoples are gathered together, The people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is greatly exalted!
- Psalms 77:69 θεμελιόω
- Psalms 86:1 θεμελιόω Hear, Yahweh, and answer me, For I am poor and needy.
- Psalms 86:5 θεμελιόω For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive; Abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you.
- Psalms 88:12 θεμελιόω Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
- Psalms 101:26 θεμελιόω
- Psalms 103:5 θεμελιόω Who satisfies your desire with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
- Psalms 103:8 θεμελιόω Yahweh is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness.
- Psalms 118:90 θεμελιόω
- Psalms 118:152 θεμελιόω
- Proverbs 3:19 θεμελιόω By wisdom Yahweh founded the earth. By understanding, he established the heavens.
- Proverbs 8:23 θεμελιόω I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, Before the earth existed.
- Proverbs 18:19 θεμελιόω A brother offended is more difficult than a fortified city; And disputes are like the bars of a castle.
- Song of Solomon 5:15 θεμελιόω His legs are like pillars of marble set on sockets of fine gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.
- Isaiah 14:32 θεμελιόω What then shall one answer the messengers of the nation? That Yahweh has founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of his people take refuge.
- Isaiah 44:28 θεμελιόω Who says of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Your foundation shall be laid.
- Isaiah 48:13 θεμελιόω Yes, my hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spread out the heavens: when I call to them, they stand up together.
- Isaiah 51:13 θεμελιόω and have forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fear continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he makes ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?
- Isaiah 51:16 θεμελιόω I have put my words in your mouth, and have covered you in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and tell Zion, You are my people.
- Amos 9:6 θεμελιόω It is he who builds his chambers in the heavens, and has founded his vault on the earth; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the surface of the earth; Yahweh is his name.
- Haggai 2:18 θεμελιόω 'Consider, please, from this day and backward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of Yahweh's temple was laid, consider it.
- Zechariah 4:9 θεμελιόω "The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it; and you will know that Yahweh of Hosts has sent me to you.
- Zechariah 8:9 θεμελιόω Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: "Let your hands be strong, you who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets who were in the day that the foundation of the house of Yahweh of Hosts was laid, even the temple, that it might be built.
- Zechariah 12:1 θεμελιόω An oracle. The word of Yahweh concerning Israel. Yahweh, who stretches out the heavens, and lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him says:
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2311) 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.
