καταφευγω
to flee away
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
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).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G2703 appears in the Book of Hebrews — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Hebrews
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, καταφευγω (katapheúgō) means “to flee away.” A scarce word — 2 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. The word gravitates to Acts (50%), then Hebrews. Scripture first uses it in Acts 14:6. It clusters with κατα, καθα and καθαιρεω under a shared root. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2703 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 2 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 2 of 27 New Testament books.
- #2,678
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Greek words (rank 2,678 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
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 2 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 50%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 50%
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: Fled 1×, Have fled for refuge 1×
- American Standard Version: Have fled for refuge 1×, It 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Fled 1×, We who have fled 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Having fled for refuge 1×, They fled 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2703 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2703 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G2703 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2703 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 flee away, flee for refuge
Word origin
Derived from κατα (katá) (G2596) — down.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms G2703 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| κατέφυγον katéphygon | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Acts 14:6 | 1 |
| καταφυγόντες kataphygóntes | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Hebrews 6:18 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2703, 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
- καθα kathá G2505 according as
- καθαιρεω kathairéō G2507 to tear down
- καθαπτω katháptō G2510 to fasten down
- καθεδρα kathédra G2515 seat
- καθεζομαι kathézomai G2516 to sit down
- καθεξης kathexēs G2517 in order
- καθευδω katheúdō G2518 to fall asleep
- καθηγητης kathēgētḗs G2519 guide
- καθηκω kathḗkō G2520 to come down
- καθημαι káthēmai G2521 to sit down
- καθημερινος kathēmerinós G2522 daily
- καθιημι kathíēmi G2524 to send down
- καθιστημι kathístēmi G2525 to place
- καθο kathó G2526 according to what
- καθολου kathólou G2527 wholly
- καθοπλιζω kathoplízō G2528 to arm
- καθοραω kathoráō G2529 to see clearly
- καθοτι kathóti G2530 according to what
- καθως kathṓs G2531 according as
- καμμυω kammýō G2576 to close eyes
- καταβαινω katabaínō G2597 to descend
- καταβαλλω katabállō G2598 to cast down
- καταβαρεω katabaréō G2599 to weigh down
- καταβιβαζω katabibázō G2601 to bring down
+103 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 129 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word καταφευγω appears 16 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 16 verses in 10 books.
- 16
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 16
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 10 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 10 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 19:20 καταφεύγω
- Exodus 21:14 καταφεύγω
- Leviticus 26:25 καταφεύγω
- Numbers 35:25 καταφεύγω
- Deuteronomy 4:42 καταφεύγω
- Joshua 10:27 καταφεύγω
- Psalms 142:9 καταφεύγω
- Isaiah 10:3 καταφεύγω
- Jeremiah 27:5 καταφεύγω
- Zechariah 2:15 καταφεύγω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2703) 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 19:20 καταφεύγω See now, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape there (isn't it a little one?), and my soul will live."
- Exodus 21:14 καταφεύγω If a man schemes and comes presumptuously on his neighbor to kill him, you shall take him from my altar, that he may die.
- Leviticus 26:25 καταφεύγω I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- Numbers 35:25 καταφεύγω and the congregation shall deliver the manslayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, where he was fled: and he shall dwell therein until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.
- Numbers 35:26 καταφεύγω But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the border of his city of refuge, where he flees,
- Deuteronomy 4:42 καταφεύγω that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
- Deuteronomy 19:5 καταφεύγω as when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand fetches a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle, and lights on his neighbor, so that he dies; he shall flee to one of these cities and live:
- Joshua 10:27 καταφεύγω It happened at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave in which they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, to this very day.
- Joshua 20:6 καταφεύγω He shall dwell in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days: then shall the manslayer return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from whence he fled.
- Psalms 142:9 καταφεύγω
- Isaiah 10:3 καταφεύγω What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will you flee for help? and where will you leave your glory?
- Isaiah 17:3 καταφεύγω The fortress shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria; they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, says Yahweh of Hosts.
- Isaiah 54:15 καταφεύγω Behold, they may gather together, but not by me: whoever shall gather together against you shall fall because of you.
- Isaiah 55:5 καταφεύγω Behold, you shall call a nation that you don't know; and a nation that didn't know you shall run to you, because of Yahweh your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.
- Jeremiah 27:5 καταφεύγω I have made the earth, the men and the animals that are on the surface of the earth, by my great power and by my outstretched arm; and I give it to whom it seems right to me.
- Zechariah 2:15 καταφεύγω
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2703) 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.
