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καταβαίνω

to descend

‘to descend’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓

G2597 Strong's Greek
katabaínō Transliteration
/kat-ab-ah'-ee-no/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 79 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.

At its core, καταβαινω (katabaínō) means “to descend.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “came down” in the King James Version, “coming down” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It turns up in 79 verses across 10 books, a moderately common footprint. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 3:16. Catalogued under 4 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
come down
Modern gloss
to descend
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 G2597 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 →

79
distinct verses
The word appears in 79 distinct verses.
10 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 10 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 3:16
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 3:16.
Revelation 21:10
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 21:10.
#214
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 214 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 79 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 45 · 57%
  • Acts 19 · 24%
  • Pauline Epistles 4 · 5%
  • General Epistles 1 · 1%
  • Revelation 10 · 13%

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 79 distinct verses.

  • Gospels 45 verses · 57%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 31 verses · 39%
  • Johannine 27 verses · 34%
  • Revelation 10 verses · 13%
  • Pauline corpus 4 verses · 5%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 1%

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: Came down 12×, Come down 12×, Descended 7×
  • American Standard Version: Came down 7×, Come down 7×, Descended 7×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Came down 8×, Come down 8×, Went down 7×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Coming down 11×, Having come down 7×, Came down 6×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G2597 across 85 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Came down” 12×
  • “Come down” 12×
  • “Descended” 7×
  • “Descending” 7×
  • “Went down” 7×
  • “Cometh down” 4×
  • “He went down” 4×
  • “Descend” 2×
  • “Go down” 2×
  • “I came down” 2×
  • “Let” 2×
  • “Let him” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 16 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 G2597 across 83 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Came down” 7×
  • “Come down” 7×
  • “Descended” 7×
  • “Descending” 7×
  • “Went down” 7×
  • “Coming down” 5×
  • “Cometh down” 4×
  • “Down” 3×
  • “Go down” 3×
  • “He went down” 3×
  • “I am come down” 3×
  • “Let him” 3×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 18 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 G2597 across 79 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Came down” 8×
  • “Come down” 8×
  • “Went down” 7×
  • “Coming down” 5×
  • “Descending” 5×
  • “Descended” 4×
  • “Comes down” 3×
  • “Down” 3×
  • “He went down” 3×
  • “Fell” 2×
  • “Had come down” 2×
  • “Have come down” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 17 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 G2597 across 89 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Coming down” 11×
  • “Having come down” 7×
  • “Came down” 6×
  • “Come down” 6×
  • “Go down” 5×
  • “Went down” 5×
  • “Descending” 4×
  • “He went down” 3×
  • “I have come down” 3×
  • “Let” 3×
  • “Was going down” 3×
  • “Comes down” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 23 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 4 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. to go down, come down, descend
  2. to come (i.e. be sent) down
  3. to come (i.e. fall) down
  4. metaph. to (go i.e.) be cast down to the lowest state of wretchedness and shame

Word origin

Derived from κατα (katá) (G2596) — down.

Part of speech: Verb TDNT: 09:42,9

From G2596 and the base of G939 ; to descend (literally or figuratively): - come (get go step) down descend fall (down).

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


Forms in the corpus

The 26 distinct written forms G2597 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
κατέβη katébē Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 7:25 13
καταβὰς katabàs Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 14:29 9
καταβαῖνον katabaînon Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter Matthew 3:16 7
κατέβησαν katébēsan Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural John 6:16 5
καταβάτω katabátō Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 24:17 5
κατάβηθι katábēthi Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular Matthew 27:40 4
καταβάς katabás Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine John 3:13 3
καταβαίνοντα katabaínonta Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Masculine Revelation 10:1 3
καταβαίνουσαν katabaínousan Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Feminine Acts 8:26 3
κατέβαινεν katébainen Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 10:30 2
καταβάντες katabántes Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Mark 3:22 2
καταβέβηκα katabébēka Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular John 6:38 2
καταβήσεται katabḗsetai Verb, Future, Middle deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Romans 10:7 2
καταβαίνει katabaínei Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular John 5:7 2
καταβαίνοντος katabaínontos Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine Luke 22:44 2
καταβαίνων katabaínōn Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine John 6:33 2
καταβαινόντων katabainóntōn Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine Matthew 17:9 2
καταβῆναι katabē̂nai Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive Luke 3:22 2
καταβῇ katabē̂ Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular John 4:47 2
Καταβάντι Katabánti Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Dative, Singular, Masculine Matthew 8:1 1
κατέβην katébēn Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular Acts 7:34 1
καταβαίνειν katabaínein Verb, Present, Active, Infinitive Revelation 13:13 1
καταβαίνοντας katabaínontas Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine John 1:52 1
καταβαίνουσα katabaínousa Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine Revelation 3:12 1
καταβεβηκότες katabebēkótes Verb, Perfect, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Acts 25:7 1
καταβὰν katabàn Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter Acts 23:10 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2597, 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

+103 more words share this root (not shown).

Derived from this word

Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 130 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.


Septuagint usage

The same Greek word καταβαινω appears 295 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 267 verses in 29 books.

295
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
267
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
29 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 29 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2597) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 267. 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 (G2597) 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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