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θεός

God

‘God’ is one of 6 main senses fuller range ↓

G2316 Strong's Greek
theós Transliteration
/theh'-os/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 1,312 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

The Greek name θεος centers on the idea of “God.” Its earliest occurrence is Matthew 1:23. It appears 1,152 verses across 27 books of the Greek New Testament, among its most common vocabulary. For the data behind this summary, explore 1,152-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
exceeding
Modern gloss
God
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G2316 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 →

1,152
distinct verses
The word appears in 1,152 distinct verses.
27 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 27 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 1:23
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 1:23.
Revelation 22:19
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 22:19.
#14
by frequency
Top 25 most frequent Greek words (rank 14 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 1,152 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 266 · 23%
  • Acts 155 · 13%
  • Pauline Epistles 479 · 42%
  • General Epistles 165 · 14%
  • Revelation 87 · 8%

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 1,152 distinct verses.

  • Pauline corpus 479 verses · 42%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 269 verses · 23%
  • Gospels 266 verses · 23%
  • Johannine 199 verses · 17%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 102 verses · 9%
  • Revelation 87 verses · 8%
  • Hebrews 63 verses · 5%

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: God 1,272×, God's 13×, Is god 10×
  • American Standard Version: God 1,211×, Is god 9×, Gods 8×
  • Berean Standard Bible: God 1,175×, God’s 87×, Gods 8×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: God 1,285×, The 20×, Of 19×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G2316 across 1,342 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “God” 1,272×
  • “God's” 13×
  • “Is god” 10×
  • “Gods” 8×
  • “Godly” 5×
  • “Am the god” 2×
  • “Be the god” 2×
  • “Be to god” 2×
  • “Be unto god” 2×
  • “Before god” 2×
  • “God-ward” 2×
  • “Toward god” 2×

Plus 20 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.

American Standard Version Public Domain

Renders G2316 across 1,315 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “God” 1,211×
  • “Is god” 9×
  • “Gods” 8×
  • “Lord” 8×
  • “The” 8×
  • “Of” 7×
  • “He” 5×
  • “Be the god” 3×
  • “Be to god” 3×
  • “Christ” 3×
  • “Am the god” 2×
  • “Before god” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 36 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 5 further occurrences.

Berean Standard Bible Public Domain

Renders G2316 across 1,292 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “God” 1,175×
  • “God’s” 87×
  • “Gods” 8×
  • “Godly” 3×
  • “About god” 2×
  • “Before god” 2×
  • “Divine” 2×
  • “God to the test” 2×
  • “To” 2×

Plus 9 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 26 further occurrences.

unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Renders G2316 across 1,361 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “God” 1,285×
  • “The” 20×
  • “Of” 19×
  • “Gods” 8×
  • “God s” 7×
  • “To” 4×
  • “Is god” 3×

Plus 15 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 6 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.

  1. a god or goddess, a general name of deities or divinities
  2. God the Father, the first person in the trinity
  3. Christ, the second person of the trinity
  4. Holy Spirit, the third person in the trinity
  5. spoken of the only and true God
  6. whatever can in any respect be likened unto God, or resemble him in any way

Word origin

Derived from ο (ho) (G3588).

Part of speech: Noun Masculine TDNT: 04:05,3

Of uncertain affinity; a deity especially (with G3588 ) the supreme Divinity ; figuratively a magistrate ; by hebraism very : - X exceeding God god [-ly -ward].

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 13 distinct written forms G2316 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
θεοῦ theoû Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine Matthew 3:16 688
θεὸς theòs Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 3:9 241
θεῷ theō̂ Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 6:24 158
θεόν theón Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 4:7 75
θεὸν theòn Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 5:8 74
θεός theós Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 1:23 65
θεοὶ theoì Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Acts 14:11 4
θεέ theé Noun, Vocative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 27:46 2
θεοί theoí Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine John 10:34 1
θεούς theoús Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine John 10:35 1
θεοὺς theoùs Noun, Accusative, Plural, Masculine Acts 7:40 1
θεοῖς theoîs Noun, Dative, Plural, Masculine Galatians 4:8 1
θεῶ theō̂ Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine Romans 1:8 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2316, 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

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 26 — not the complete family. 3 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Bible dictionary

Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (God). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.

Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897

(A.S. and Dutch God; Dan. Gud; Ger. Gott), the name of the Divine Being. It is the rendering (1) of the Hebrew 'El, from a word meaning to be strong; (2) of 'Eloah_, plural _'Elohim. The singular form, Eloah, is used only in poetry. The plural form is more commonly used in all parts of the Bible, The Hebrew word Jehovah (q.v.), the only other word generally employed to denote the Supreme Being, is uniformly rendered in the Authorized Version by "LORD," printed in small capitals. The existence of God is taken for granted in the Bible. There is nowhere any argument to prove it. He who disbelieves this truth is spoken of as one devoid of understanding (Ps. 14:1).

The arguments generally adduced by theologians in proof of the being of God are:

(1.) The a priori argument, which is the testimony afforded by reason.

(2.) The a posteriori argument, by which we proceed logically from the facts of experience to causes. These arguments are,

(a) The cosmological, by which it is proved that there must be a First Cause of all things, for every effect must have a cause.

(b) The teleological, or the argument from design. We see everywhere the operations of an intelligent Cause in nature.

(c) The moral argument, called also the anthropological argument, based on the moral consciousness and the history of mankind, which exhibits a moral order and purpose which can only be explained on the supposition of the existence of God. Conscience and human history testify that "verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth."

The attributes of God are set forth in order by Moses in Ex. 34:6, 7. (see also Deut. 6:4; 10:17; Num. 16:22; Ex. 15:11; 33:19; Isa. 44:6; Hab. 3:6; Ps. 102:26; Job 34:12.) They are also systematically classified in Rev. 5:12 and 7:12.

God's attributes are spoken of by some as absolute, i.e., such as belong to his essence as Jehovah, Jah, etc.; and relative, i.e., such as are ascribed to him with relation to his creatures. Others distinguish them into communicable, i.e., those which can be imparted in degree to his creatures: goodness, holiness, wisdom, etc.; and incommunicable, which cannot be so imparted: independence, immutability, immensity, and eternity. They are by some also divided into natural attributes, eternity, immensity, etc.; and moral, holiness, goodness, etc.

Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863

(good). Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures two chief names are used for the one true divine Being--ELOHIM, commonly translated God in our version, and Jehovah, translated Lord . Elohim is the plural of Eloah (in Arabic Allah); it is often used in the short form EL (a word signifying strength, as in EL-SHADDAI, God Almighty, the name by which God was specially known to the patriarchs. (Genesis 17:1; 28:3; Exodus 6:3) The etymology is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that the primary idea is that of strength, power of effect, and that it properly describes God in that character in which he is exhibited to all men in his works, as the creator, sustainer and supreme governor of the world. The plural form of Elohim has given rise to much discussion. The fanciful idea that it referred to the trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what grammarians call the plural of majesty, or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of the powers displayed by God. Jehovah denotes specifically the one true God, whose people the Jews were, and who made them the guardians of his truth. The name is never applied to a false god, nor to any other being except one, the ANGEL-JEHOVAH who is thereby marked as one with God, and who appears again in the New Covenant as "God manifested in the flesh." Thus much is clear; but all else is beset with difficulties. At a time too early to be traced, the Jews abstained from pronouncing the name, for fear of its irreverent use. The custom is said to have been founded on a strained interpretation of (Leviticus 24:16) and the phrase there used, "THE NAME" (Shema), is substituted by the rabbis for the unutterable word. In reading the Scriptures they substituted for it the word ADONAI (Lord), from the translation of which by Kurios in the LXX., followed by the Vulgate, which uses Dominus, we have the Lord of our version. The substitution of the word Lord is most unhappy, for it in no way represents the meaning of the sacred name. The key to the meaning of the name is unquestionably given in God's revelation of himself to Moses by the phrase "I AM THAT I AM," (Exodus 3:14; 6:3) We must connect the name Jehovah with the Hebrew substantive verb to be, with the inference that it expresses the essential, eternal, unchangeable being of Jehovah. But more, it is not the expression only, or chiefly, of an absolute truth: it is a practical revelation of God, in his essential, unchangeable relation to this chosen people, the basis of his covenant.

Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word θεος appears 3,139 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 2,639 verses in 36 books.

3,139
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
2,639
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
36 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 36 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2316) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 2,639. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2316) 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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