κηρύσσω
to proclaim
‘to proclaim’ 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 Aorist-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
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
2 verses where G2784 appears in the Imperfect tense in the Book of Mark. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
Mark
- Mark 1:7 ἐκήρυσσεν impf act ind 3sg He preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and loosen.
- Mark 7:36 ἐκήρυσσον impf act ind 3pl He commanded them that they should tell no one, but the more he commanded them, so much the more widely they proclaimed it.
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.
κηρυσσω — transliterated kērýssō — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to proclaim.” Older and newer Bibles part ways — “preach” in the King James Version, “proclaim” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions. See the renderings breakdown. It appears 59 verses across 15 books of the Greek New Testament, among its moderately common vocabulary. Its earliest occurrence is Matthew 3:1. Thayer's distinguishes 3 senses for it. 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 G2784 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 →
- 59
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 59 distinct verses.
- 15 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 15 of 27 New Testament books.
- #267
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 267 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 59 occurrences in the concordance →
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 59 distinct verses.
- Gospels 31 verses · 53%
- Pauline corpus 18 verses · 31%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 16 verses · 27%
- Johannine 1 verse · 2%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 2%
- Revelation 1 verse · 2%
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: Preach 15×, Preached 8×, Preaching 8×
- American Standard Version: Preach 12×, Preaching 9×, Preached 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Preach 12×, Preaching 8×, Proclaim 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Proclaim 10×, Preaching 9×, Preach 7×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G2784 across 62 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 17 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 G2784 across 62 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 21 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 G2784 across 61 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 15 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 G2784 across 64 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 25 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 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.
- to be a herald, to officiate as a herald
- to publish, proclaim openly: something which has been done
- used of the public proclamation of the gospel and matters pertaining to it…
Word origin
Origin: of uncertain affinity
Of uncertain affinity; to herald (as a public crier ) especially divine truth (the gospel): - preach (-er) proclaim publish.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 28 distinct written forms G2784 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G2784, 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 κηρυσσω appears 26 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 26 verses in 14 books.
- 26
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 26
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 41:43 κηρύσσω
- Exodus 32:5 κηρύσσω
- 2 Kings 10:20 κηρύσσω
- 2 Chronicles 20:3 κηρύσσω
- Esther 6:9 κηρύσσω
- Proverbs 1:21 κηρύσσω
- Isaiah 61:1 κηρύσσω
- Daniel 3:4 κηρύσσω
- Hosea 5:8 κηρύσσω
- Joel 1:14 κηρύσσω
- Jonah 1:2 κηρύσσω
- Micah 3:5 κηρύσσω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G2784) 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 41:43 κηρύσσω and he made him to ride in the second chariot which he had. They cried before him, "Bow the knee!" He set him over all the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 32:5 κηρύσσω When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation, and said, "Tomorrow shall be a feast to Yahweh."
- Exodus 36:6 κηρύσσω Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, "Let neither man nor woman make anything else for the offering for the sanctuary." So the people were restrained from bringing.
- 2 Kings 10:20 κηρύσσω Jehu said, Sanctify a solemn assembly for Baal. They proclaimed it.
- 2 Chronicles 20:3 κηρύσσω Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek to Yahweh; and he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
- 2 Chronicles 24:9 κηρύσσω They made a proclamation through Judah and Jerusalem, to bring in for Yahweh the tax that Moses the servant of God laid on Israel in the wilderness.
- 2 Chronicles 36:22 κηρύσσω Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying,
- Esther 6:9 κηρύσσω and let the clothing and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man therewith whom the king delights to honor, and cause him to ride on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
- Esther 6:11 κηρύσσω Then took Haman the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and caused him to ride through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.
- Proverbs 1:21 κηρύσσω She calls at the head of noisy places. At the entrance of the city gates, she utters her words:
- Proverbs 8:1 κηρύσσω Doesn't wisdom cry out? Doesn't understanding raise her voice?
- Isaiah 61:1 κηρύσσω The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is on me; because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble; he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening [of the prison] to those who are bound;
- Daniel 3:4 κηρύσσω Then the herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages,
- Hosea 5:8 κηρύσσω "Blow the cornet in Gibeah, And the trumpet in Ramah! Sound a battle cry at Beth Aven, behind you, Benjamin!
- Joel 1:14 κηρύσσω Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders, And all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Yahweh, your God, And cry to Yahweh.
- Joel 2:1 κηρύσσω Blow you the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of Yahweh comes, For it is close at hand:
- Joel 2:15 κηρύσσω Blow the trumpet in Zion! Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn assembly.
- Joel 4:9 κηρύσσω
- Jonah 1:2 κηρύσσω "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me."
- Jonah 3:2 κηρύσσω "Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you."
- Jonah 3:4 κηρύσσω Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried out, and said, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
- Jonah 3:5 κηρύσσω The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
- Jonah 3:7 κηρύσσω He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, "Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;
- Micah 3:5 κηρύσσω Thus says Yahweh concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, "Peace!" and whoever doesn't provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him:
- Zephaniah 3:14 κηρύσσω Sing, daughter of Zion! Shout, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem.
- Zechariah 9:9 κηρύσσω Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king comes to you! He is righteous, and having salvation; Lowly, and riding on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G2784) 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.
