λέγω
to say
‘to say’ is one of 6 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-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
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
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.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
42 verses where G3004 appears in the Imperfect tense in the Book of John. 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.
John
- John 2:21 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg But he spoke of the temple of his body.
- John 2:22 ἔλεγεν εἶπεν impf act ind 3sg aor act ind 3sg When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
- John 4:33 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl The disciples therefore said one to another, "Has anyone brought him something to eat?"
- John 4:42 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl They said to the woman, "Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."
- John 5:10 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl So the Jews said to him who was cured, "It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry the mat."
- John 5:18 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
- John 5:19 ἔλεγεν λέγω impf act ind 3sg pres act ind 1sg Jesus therefore answered them, "Most assuredly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise.
- John 6:6 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
- John 6:14 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl When therefore the people saw the sign which Jesus did, they said, "This is truly the prophet who comes into the world."
- John 6:42 ἔλεγον λέγει impf act ind 3pl pres act ind 3sg They said, "Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, 'I have come down out of heaven?'"
- John 6:65 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg He said, "For this cause have I said to you that no one can come to me, unless it is given to him by my Father."
- John 6:71 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for it was he who would betray him, being one of the twelve.
- John 7:11 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, "Where is he?"
- John 7:12 ἔλεγον ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl impf act ind 3pl There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, "He is a good man." Others said, "Not so, but he leads the multitude astray."
- John 7:25 Ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl Therefore some of them of Jerusalem said, "Isn't this he whom they seek to kill?
- John 7:31 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl But of the multitude, many believed in him. They said, "When the Christ comes, he won't do more signs than those which this man has done, will he?"
- John 7:40 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl Many of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, "This is truly the prophet."
- John 7:41 ἔλεγον ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl impf act ind 3pl Others said, "This is the Christ." But some said, "What, does the Christ come out of Galilee?
- John 8:6 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl They said this testing him, that they might have something to accuse him of. But Jesus stooped down, and wrote on the ground with his finger.
- John 8:19 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl They said therefore to him, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me, nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also."
- John 8:22 ἔλεγον λέγει impf act ind 3pl pres act ind 3sg The Jews therefore said, "Will he kill himself, that he says, 'Where I am going, you can't come?'"
- John 8:23 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg He said to them, "You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.
- John 8:25 ἔλεγον εἶπεν impf act ind 3pl aor act ind 3sg They said therefore to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.
- John 8:27 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg They didn't understand that he spoke to them about the Father.
- John 8:31 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg Jesus therefore said to those Jews who had believed him, "If you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples.
- John 9:8 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl The neighbors therefore, and those who saw that he was blind before, said, "Isn't this he who sat and begged?"
- John 9:9 ἔλεγον ἔλεγον ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3pl impf act ind 3pl impf act ind 3sg Others were saying, "It is he." Still others were saying, "He looks like him." He said, "I am he."
- John 9:10 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl They therefore were asking him, "How were your eyes opened?"
- John 9:16 ἔλεγον ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl impf act ind 3pl Some therefore of the Pharisees said, "This man is not from God, because he doesn't keep the Sabbath." Others said, "How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?" There was division among them.
- John 10:20 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl Many of them said, "He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?"
- John 10:21 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl Others said, "These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn't possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?"
- John 10:24 ἔλεγον εἰπὸν impf act ind 3pl aor act impv 2sg The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, "How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."
- John 10:41 ἔλεγον εἶπεν impf act ind 3pl aor act ind 3sg Many came to him. They said, "John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true."
- John 11:36 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl The Jews therefore said, "See how much affection he had for him!"
- John 11:47 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees gathered a council, and said, "What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
- John 11:56 ἔλεγαν impf act ind 3pl Then they sought for Jesus and spoke one with another, as they stood in the temple, "What do you think--that he isn't coming to the feast at all?"
- John 12:29 ἔλεγεν ἔλεγον impf act ind 3sg impf act ind 3pl The multitude therefore, who stood by and heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him."
- John 12:33 ἔλεγεν impf act ind 3sg But he said this, signifying by what kind of death he should die.
- John 16:18 ἔλεγον λέγει impf act ind 3pl pres act ind 3sg They said therefore, "What is this that he says, 'A little while?' We don't know what he is saying."
- John 19:3 ἔλεγον impf act ind 3pl They kept saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and they kept slapping him.
- John 19:21 ἔλεγον εἶπεν impf act ind 3pl aor act ind 3sg The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, "Don't write, 'The King of the Jews,' but, 'he said, I am King of the Jews.'"
- John 20:25 ἔλεγον εἶπεν impf act ind 3pl aor act ind 3sg The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
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, λεγω (légō) means “to say.” The King James Version usually renders it “saying,” while modern versions prefer “i tell” (Berean Standard Bible) and “said” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) — see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 1,941 verses in 25 books, it ranks among the most common words of the Greek New Testament. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 1:16. Catalogued under 6 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
About this word
Strong's G3004 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 →
- 1,941
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 1,941 distinct verses.
- 25 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 25 of 27 New Testament books.
- #7
- by frequency
- Top 10 most frequent Greek words (rank 7 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 1,941 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 1,941 distinct verses.
- Gospels 1,468 verses · 76%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 649 verses · 33%
- Johannine 488 verses · 25%
- Pauline corpus 108 verses · 6%
- Revelation 94 verses · 5%
- Hebrews 37 verses · 2%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 24 verses · 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: Saying 384×, Saith 199×, I say 158×
- American Standard Version: Saying 322×, Saith 207×, I say 143×
- Berean Standard Bible: I tell 142×, Said 123×, Saying 63×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Said 556×, Saying 410×, Says 225×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G3004 across 1,349 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 58 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G3004 across 1,274 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 97 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 G3004 across 993 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 108 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 179 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G3004 across 2,448 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 104 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.
- affirm over, maintain
- to teach
- to exhort, advise, to command, direct
- to point out with words, intend, mean, mean to say
- to call by name, to call, name
- to speak out, speak of, mention
Word origin
Origin: a root word
A primary verb; properly to lay forth that is (figuratively) relate (in words [usually of systematic or set discourse ; whereas G2036 and G5346 generally refer to an individual expression or speech respectively; while G4483 is properly to break silence merely and G2980 means an extended or random harangue]); by implication to mean : - ask bid boast call describe give out name put forth say (-ing on) shew speak tell utter.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 85 distinct written forms G3004 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
The 60 most common forms are shown; 25 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3004, 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 λεγω appears 5,715 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 4,644 verses in 38 books.
- 5,715
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 4,644
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 38 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 38 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 1:3 εἶπον
- Exodus 1:9 εἶπον
- Leviticus 1:1 λέγω
- Numbers 1:1 λέγω
- Deuteronomy 1:5 λέγω
- Joshua 1:1 εἶπον
- Judges 1:1 λέγω
- Ruth 1:8 εἶπον
- 1 Samuel 1:8 εἶπον
- 2 Samuel 1:3 εἶπον
- 1 Kings 1:2 εἶπον
- 2 Kings 1:2 εἶπον
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3004) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 4,644. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 1:3 εἶπον God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
- Genesis 1:6 εἶπον God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."
- Genesis 1:9 εἶπον God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so.
- Genesis 1:11 εἶπον God said, "Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind, with its seed in it, on the earth," and it was so.
- Genesis 1:14 εἶπον God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years;
- Genesis 1:20 εἶπον God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of sky."
- Genesis 1:22 λέγω God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
- Genesis 1:24 εἶπον God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, creeping things, and animals of the earth after their kind," and it was so.
- Genesis 1:26 εἶπον God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
- Genesis 1:28 λέγω God blessed them. God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
- Genesis 1:29 εἶπον God said, "Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food.
- Genesis 2:16 λέγω Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat:
- Genesis 2:18 εἶπον Yahweh God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
- Genesis 2:23 εἶπον The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh. She will be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."
- Genesis 3:1 εἶπον Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, "Yes, has God said, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?'"
- Genesis 3:2 εἶπον The woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat,
- Genesis 3:3 εἶπον but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"
- Genesis 3:4 εἶπον The serpent said to the woman, "You won't surely die,
- Genesis 3:9 εἶπον Yahweh God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
- Genesis 3:10 εἶπον The man said, "I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself."
- Genesis 3:11 εἶπον God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
- Genesis 3:12 εἶπον The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate."
- Genesis 3:13 εἶπον Yahweh God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
- Genesis 3:14 εἶπον Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle, and above every animal of the field. On your belly shall you go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.
- Genesis 3:16 εἶπον To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."
- Genesis 3:17 εἶπον To Adam he said, "Because you have listened to your wife's voice, and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
- Genesis 3:22 εἶπον Yahweh God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he put forth his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..."
- Genesis 4:1 εἶπον The man knew Eve his wife. She conceived, and gave birth to Cain, and said, "I have gotten a man with Yahweh's help."
- Genesis 4:6 εἶπον Yahweh said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why has the expression of your face fallen?
- Genesis 4:8 εἶπον Cain said to Abel, his brother, "Let's go into the field." It happened, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
- Genesis 4:9 εἶπον Yahweh said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" He said, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
- Genesis 4:10 εἶπον Yahweh said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground.
- Genesis 4:13 εἶπον Cain said to Yahweh, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
- Genesis 4:15 εἶπον Yahweh said to him, "Therefore whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." Yahweh appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should strike him.
- Genesis 4:23 εἶπον Lamech said to his wives, "Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice, You wives of Lamech, listen to my speech, For I have slain a man for wounding me, A young man for bruising me.
- Genesis 4:25 λέγω Adam knew his wife again. She gave birth to a son, and named him Seth. For, she said, "God has appointed me another child instead of Abel, for Cain killed him."
- Genesis 5:29 λέγω and he named him Noah, saying, "This same will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, because of the ground which Yahweh has cursed."
- Genesis 6:3 εἶπον Yahweh said, "My Spirit will not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; yet will his days be one hundred twenty years."
- Genesis 6:7 εἶπον Yahweh said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground; man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
- Genesis 6:13 εἶπον God said to Noah, "The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
- Genesis 7:1 εἶπον Yahweh said to Noah, "Come with all of your household into the ark, for I have seen your righteousness before me in this generation.
- Genesis 8:15 εἶπονλέγω God spoke to Noah, saying,
- Genesis 8:21 εἶπον Yahweh smelled the sweet savor. Yahweh said in his heart, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, because the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again strike everything living, as I have done.
- Genesis 9:1 εἶπον God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
- Genesis 9:8 εἶπονλέγω God spoke to Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
- Genesis 9:12 εἶπον God said, "This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
- Genesis 9:17 εἶπον God said to Noah, "This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."
- Genesis 9:25 εἶπον He said, "Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants will he be to his brothers."
- Genesis 9:26 εἶπον He said, "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem; Let Canaan be his servant.
- Genesis 10:9 εἶπον He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh. Therefore it is said, "Like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before Yahweh."
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3004) 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.
