κέρας
horn
‘horn’ is one of 3 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.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter 6 times (55%)
- Noun, Genitive, Plural, Neuter 2 times (18%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Neuter 2 times (18%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Neuter 1 time (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G2768 appears — 10 distinct verses across 2 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 1 verse
Revelation 9 verses
- Revelation 5:6 κέρατα n acc pl neut I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.
- Revelation 9:13 κεράτων n gen pl neut The sixth angel sounded. I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God,
- Revelation 12:3 κέρατα n acc pl neut Another sign was seen in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven crowns.
- Revelation 13:1 κέρατα κεράτων n acc pl neut n gen pl neut Then I stood on the sand of the sea. I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads. On his horns were ten crowns, and on his heads, blasphemous names.
- Revelation 13:11 κέρατα n acc pl neut I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke like a dragon.
- Revelation 17:3 κέρατα n acc pl neut He carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet-colored animal, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns.
- Revelation 17:7 κέρατα n acc pl neut The angel said to me, "Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns.
- Revelation 17:12 κέρατα n nom pl neut The ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour.
- Revelation 17:16 κέρατα n nom pl neut The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, and will make her desolate, and will make her naked, and will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire.
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 noun κερας centers on the idea of “horn.” Revelation dominates its distribution — 9 of 10 verses. The Greek New Testament uses it across 10 verses — uncommon. First canonically at Luke 1:69, it enters the text early. Lexicons map it across 3 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G2768 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 2 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 2 of 27 New Testament books.
- #978
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 978 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 10 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Revelation 9 verses 90%
- Luke 1 verse 10%
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 10 distinct verses.
- Johannine 9 verses · 90%
- Revelation 9 verses · 90%
- Gospels 1 verse · 10%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 10%
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: Horns 10×
- American Standard Version: Horns 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: Horns 10×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Horns 10×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2768 across 11 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G2768 across 11 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 G2768 across 11 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G2768 across 11 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 3 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.
- of animals
- since animals (esp. bulls) defend themselves with their horns…
- a projecting extremity in a shape like a horn, a point, apex: as of an altar
Word origin
Origin: from a primary kar (the hair of the head)
From a primary word κάρ kar (the hair of the head); a horn (literally or figuratively): - horn.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G2768 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| κέρατα kérata | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Revelation 5:6 | 8 |
| κεράτων kerátōn | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Neuter | Revelation 9:13 | 2 |
| κέρας kéras | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Neuter | Luke 1:69 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2768, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word κερας appears 84 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 73 verses in 19 books.
- 84
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 73
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 19 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 19 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 22:13 κέρας
- Exodus 27:2 κέρας
- Leviticus 4:7 κέρας
- Deuteronomy 33:17 κέρας
- 1 Samuel 2:1 κέρας
- 2 Samuel 22:3 κέρας
- 1 Kings 1:39 κέρας
- 1 Chronicles 25:5 κέρας
- 2 Chronicles 18:10 κέρας
- Job 42:14 κέρας
- Psalms 17:3 κέρας
- Jeremiah 31:12 κέρας
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2768) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 73. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 22:13 κέρας Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son.
- Exodus 27:2 κέρας You shall make its horns on its four corners; its horns shall be of one piece with it; and you shall overlay it with brass.
- Exodus 29:12 κέρας You shall take of the blood of the bull, and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger; and you shall pour out all the blood at the base of the altar.
- Exodus 30:2 κέρας Its length shall be a cubit, and its breadth a cubit. It shall be square, and its height shall be two cubits. Its horns shall be of one piece with it.
- Exodus 30:3 κέρας You shall overlay it with pure gold, the top of it, the sides of it around it, and its horns; and you shall make a gold molding around it.
- Exodus 30:10 κέρας Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once in the year; with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once in the year he shall make atonement for it throughout your generations. It is most holy to Yahweh."
- Leviticus 4:7 κέρας The priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of sweet incense before Yahweh, which is in the tent of meeting; and he shall pour out all the blood of the bull out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
- Leviticus 4:18 κέρας He shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar which is before Yahweh, that is in the Tent of Meeting; and the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering, which is at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
- Leviticus 4:25 κέρας The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering. He shall pour out the rest of its blood at the base of the altar of burnt offering.
- Leviticus 4:30 κέρας The priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering; and the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar.
- Leviticus 4:34 κέρας The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger, and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering; and all the rest of its blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar.
- Leviticus 8:15 κέρας He killed it; and Moses took the blood, and put it on the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar, and sanctified it, to make atonement for it.
- Leviticus 9:9 κέρας The sons of Aaron presented the blood to him; and he dipped his finger in the blood, and put it on the horns of the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar:
- Leviticus 16:18 κέρας "He shall go out to the altar that is before Yahweh and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the bull's blood, and some of the goat's blood, and put it on the horns of the altar round about.
- Deuteronomy 33:17 κέρας The firstborn of his herd, majesty is his; His horns are the horns of the wild-ox: With them he shall push the peoples all of them, [even] the ends of the earth: They are the ten thousands of Ephraim, They are the thousands of Manasseh.
- 1 Samuel 2:1 κέρας Hannah prayed, and said: My heart exults in Yahweh; My horn is exalted in Yahweh; My mouth is enlarged over my enemies; Because I rejoice in your salvation.
- 1 Samuel 2:10 κέρας Those who strive with Yahweh shall be broken to pieces; Against them will he thunder in the sky: Yahweh will judge the ends of the earth; He will give strength to his king, Exalt the horn of his anointed.
- 1 Samuel 16:1 κέρας Yahweh said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from being king over Israel? fill your horn with oil, and go: I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided me a king among his sons.
- 1 Samuel 16:13 κέρας Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers: and the Spirit of Yahweh came mightily on David from that day forward. So Samuel rose up, and went to Ramah.
- 2 Samuel 22:3 κέρας God, my rock, in him will I take refuge; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge; My savior, you save me from violence.
- 1 Kings 1:39 κέρας Zadok the priest took the horn of oil out of the Tent, and anointed Solomon. They blew the trumpet; and all the people said, [Long] live king Solomon.
- 1 Kings 1:50 κέρας Adonijah feared because of Solomon; and he arose, and went, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.
- 1 Kings 1:51 κέρας It was told Solomon, saying, Behold, Adonijah fears king Solomon; for, behold, he has laid hold on the horns of the altar, saying, Let king Solomon swear to me first that he will not kill his servant with the sword.
- 1 Kings 2:28 κέρας The news came to Joab; for Joab had turned after Adonijah, though he didn't turn after Absalom. Joab fled to the Tent of Yahweh, and caught hold on the horns of the altar.
- 1 Kings 2:29 κέρας It was told king Solomon, Joab is fled to the Tent of Yahweh, and, behold, he is by the altar. Then Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, saying, Go, fall on him.
- 1 Kings 22:11 κέρας Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron, and said, Thus says Yahweh, With these shall you push the Syrians, until they be consumed.
- 1 Chronicles 25:5 κέρας All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.
- 2 Chronicles 18:10 κέρας Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah made him horns of iron, and said, Thus says Yahweh, With these shall you push the Syrians, until they be consumed.
- Job 42:14 κέρας He called the name of the first, Jemimah; and the name of the second, Keziah; and the name of the third, Keren Happuch.
- Psalms 17:3 κέρας You have proved my heart; you have visited me in the night; You have tried me, and found nothing; I have resolved that my mouth shall not disobey.
- Psalms 21:22 κέρας
- Psalms 68:32 κέρας Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth! Sing praises to the Lord! Selah.
- Psalms 74:5 κέρας They behaved like men wielding axes, Cutting through a thicket of trees.
- Psalms 74:6 κέρας Now all its carved work They break down with hatchet and hammers.
- Psalms 74:11 κέρας Why do you draw back your hand, even your right hand? Take it out of your pocket and consume them!
- Psalms 88:18 κέρας You have put lover and friend far from me, And my friends into darkness.
- Psalms 88:25 κέρας
- Psalms 91:11 κέρας For he will give his angels charge over you, To guard you in all your ways.
- Psalms 111:9 κέρας He has sent redemption to his people. He has ordained his covenant forever. His name is holy and awesome!
- Psalms 117:27 κέρας
- Psalms 131:17 κέρας
- Psalms 148:14 κέρας He has lifted up the horn of his people, The praise of all his saints; Even of the children of Israel, a people near to him. Praise Yah!
- Jeremiah 31:12 κέρας They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, and to the new wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.
- Jeremiah 31:25 κέρας For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished.
- Lamentations 2:3 κέρας He has cut off in fierce anger all the horn of Israel; He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy: He has burned up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours round about.
- Lamentations 2:17 κέρας Yahweh has done that which he purposed; he has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old; He has thrown down, and has not pitied: He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you; he has exalted the horn of your adversaries.
- Ezekiel 29:21 κέρας In that day will I cause a horn to bud forth to the house of Israel, and I will give you the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 34:21 κέρας Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad;
- Ezekiel 41:22 κέρας The altar was of wood, three cubits high, and the length of it two cubits; and the corners of it, and the length of it, and the walls of it, were of wood: and he said to me, This is the table that is before Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 43:15 κέρας The upper altar shall be four cubits; and from the altar hearth and upward there shall be four horns.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2768) 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.
