ἀναβαίνω
to ascend
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
- 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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Middle deponent
- Middle in form but active in meaning.
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.
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
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.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
6 verses where G305 appears in the Present 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 1:52 ἀναβαίνοντας pres act ptcp acc pl masc
- John 6:62 ἀναβαίνοντα pres act ptcp acc sg masc Then what if you would see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?
- John 7:8 ἀνάβητε ἀναβαίνω aor act impv 2pl pres act ind 1sg You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled."
- John 10:1 ἀναβαίνων pres act ptcp nom sg masc "Most assuredly, I tell you, one who doesn't enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
- John 12:20 ἀναβαινόντων pres act ptcp gen pl masc Now there were certain Greeks among those that went up to worship at the feast.
- John 20:17 ἀναβέβηκα ἀναβαίνω perf act ind 1sg pres act ind 1sg Jesus said to her, "Don't touch me, for I haven't yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
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.
“to ascend” is the headline sense of the Greek verb αναβαινω (anabaínō). First canonically at Matthew 3:16, it enters the text early. The Greek New Testament uses it across 78 verses — moderately common. It shares a root with ανα, αναβαλλομαι and αναβιβαζω. See the sense tree, 78-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G305 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 →
- 78
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 78 distinct verses.
- 10 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 10 of 27 New Testament books.
- #207
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 207 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 78 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Acts 19 verses 24%
- John 13 verses 17%
- Revelation 12 verses 15%
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 78 distinct verses.
- Gospels 40 verses · 51%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 28 verses · 36%
- Johannine 25 verses · 32%
- Revelation 12 verses · 15%
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 9%
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: Went up 14×, Go up 3×, He ascended 3×
- American Standard Version: Went up 14×, Ascended 4×, He went up 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Went up 15×, Come up 4×, Go up 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Went up 12×, Coming up 5×, Going up 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G305 across 87 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 36 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 G305 across 83 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 30 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 G305 across 82 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 33 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 G305 across 88 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 30 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 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.
- ascend
Word origin
Derived from ανα (aná) (G303) — among.
Forms in the corpus
The 27 distinct written forms G305 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 G305, 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
- αναβαλλομαι anabállomai G306 to delay
- αναβιβαζω anabibázō G307 to draw up
- αναβλεπω anablépō G308 to look up
- αναβοαω anaboáō G310 to cry out
- αναγγελλω anangéllō G312 to announce
- αναγενναω anagennáō G313 to be born again
- αναγινωσκω anaginṓskō G314 to recognize
- αναγκη anánkē G318 necessity
- αναγνωριζομαι anagnōrízomai G319 to recognize
- αναγω anágō G321 to lead up
- αναδεικνυμι anadeíknymi G322 to proclaim
- αναδεχομαι anadéchomai G324 to take up
- αναδιδωμι anadídōmi G325 to give forth
- αναζαω anazáō G326 to live again
- αναζητεω anazētéō G327 to search out
- αναζωννυμι anazṓnnymi G328 to gird up
- αναζωπυρεω anazōpyréō G329 to inflame
- αναθαλλω anathállō G330 to sprout up
- αναθεωρεω anatheōréō G333 to observe
- αναιρεω anairéō G337 to take away
- ανακαθιζω anakathízō G339 to sit up
- ανακαινιζω anakainízō G340 to renew
- ανακαινοω anakainóō G341 to make new
- ανακαλυπτω anakalýptō G343 to uncover
+51 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 78 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αναβαινω appears 581 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 526 verses in 35 books.
- 581
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 526
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 35 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 35 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 2:6 ἀναβαίνω
- Exodus 2:23 ἀναβαίνω
- Leviticus 25:5 ἀναβαίνω
- Numbers 9:17 ἀναβαίνω
- Deuteronomy 1:21 ἀναβαίνω
- Joshua 2:1 ἀναβαίνω
- Judges 1:1 ἀναβαίνω
- Ruth 3:3 ἀναβαίνω
- 1 Samuel 1:3 ἀναβαίνω
- 2 Samuel 2:1 ἀναβαίνω
- 1 Kings 1:40 ἀναβαίνω
- 2 Kings 1:4 ἀναβαίνω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G305) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 526. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 2:6 ἀναβαίνω but a mist went up from the earth, and watered the whole surface of the ground.
- Genesis 13:1 ἀναβαίνω Abram went up out of Egypt: he, his wife, all that he had, and Lot with him, into the South.
- Genesis 17:22 ἀναβαίνω When he finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.
- Genesis 19:28 ἀναβαίνω He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and looked, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace.
- Genesis 19:30 ἀναβαίνω Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.
- Genesis 24:16 ἀναβαίνω The young lady was very beautiful to look at, a virgin, neither had any man known her. She went down to the spring, filled her pitcher, and came up.
- Genesis 26:23 ἀναβαίνω He went up from there to Beersheba.
- Genesis 28:12 ἀναβαίνω He dreamed. Behold, a stairway set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. Behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
- Genesis 31:10 ἀναβαίνω It happened at the time that the flock conceive, that I lifted up my eyes, and saw in a dream, and behold, the male goats which leaped on the flock were streaked, speckled, and grizzled.
- Genesis 31:12 ἀναβαίνω He said, 'Now lift up your eyes, and behold, all the male goats which leap on the flock are streaked, speckled, and grizzled, for I have seen all that Laban does to you.
- Genesis 32:27 ἀναβαίνω He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob."
- Genesis 35:1 ἀναβαίνω God said to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and live there. Make there an altar to God, who appeared to you when you fled from the face of Esau your brother."
- Genesis 35:3 ἀναβαίνω Let us arise, and go up to Bethel. I will make there an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went."
- Genesis 35:13 ἀναβαίνω God went up from him in the place where he spoke with him.
- Genesis 38:12 ἀναβαίνω After many days, Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died. Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers to Timnah, he and his friend Hirah, the Adullamite.
- Genesis 38:13 ἀναβαίνω It was told Tamar, saying, "Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep."
- Genesis 41:2 ἀναβαίνω Behold, there came up out of the river seven cattle, well-favored and fat-fleshed, and they fed in the reed-grass.
- Genesis 41:3 ἀναβαίνω Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ill-favored and lean-fleshed, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river.
- Genesis 41:5 ἀναβαίνω He slept and dreamed a second time: and, behold, seven heads of grain came up on one stalk, healthy and good.
- Genesis 41:18 ἀναβαίνω and, behold, there came up out of the river seven cattle, fat-fleshed and well-favored. They fed in the reed-grass,
- Genesis 41:19 ἀναβαίνω and, behold, seven other cattle came up after them, poor and very ill-favored and lean-fleshed, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for ugliness.
- Genesis 41:22 ἀναβαίνω I saw in my dream, and, behold, seven heads of grain came up on one stalk, full and good:
- Genesis 41:27 ἀναβαίνω The seven lean and ill-favored cattle that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty heads of grain blasted with the east wind; they will be seven years of famine.
- Genesis 44:17 ἀναβαίνω He said, "Far be it from me that I should do so. The man in whose hand the cup is found, he will be my bondservant; but as for you, go up in peace to your father."
- Genesis 44:24 ἀναβαίνω It happened when we came up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord.
- Genesis 44:33 ἀναβαίνω Now therefore, please let your servant stay instead of the boy, a bondservant to my lord; and let the boy go up with his brothers.
- Genesis 44:34 ἀναβαίνω For how will I go up to my father, if the boy isn't with me? Lest I see the evil that will come on my father."
- Genesis 45:9 ἀναβαίνω Hurry, and go up to my father, and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says, "God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me. Don't wait.
- Genesis 45:25 ἀναβαίνω They went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan, to Jacob their father.
- Genesis 46:29 ἀναβαίνω Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel, his father, in Goshen. He presented himself to him, and fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.
- Genesis 46:31 ἀναβαίνω Joseph said to his brothers, and to his father's house, "I will go up, and speak with Pharaoh, and will tell him, 'My brothers, and my father's house, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me.
- Genesis 49:4 ἀναβαίνω Boiling over as water, you shall not have the pre-eminence; Because you went up to your father's bed; Then defiled it. He went up to my couch.
- Genesis 49:9 ἀναβαίνω Judah is a lion's cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he crouched as a lion, As a lioness. Who will rouse him up?
- Genesis 50:5 ἀναβαίνω 'My father made me swear, saying, "Behold, I am dying. Bury me in my grave which I have dug for myself in the land of Canaan." Now therefore, please let me go up and bury my father, and I will come again.'"
- Genesis 50:6 ἀναβαίνω Pharaoh said, "Go up, and bury your father, just like he made you swear."
- Genesis 50:7 ἀναβαίνω Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, all the elders of the land of Egypt,
- Genesis 50:9 ἀναβαίνω There went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.
- Genesis 50:14 ἀναβαίνω Joseph returned into Egypt--he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father.
- Exodus 2:23 ἀναβαίνω It happened in the course of those many days, that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.
- Exodus 7:28 ἀναβαίνω
- Exodus 7:29 ἀναβαίνω
- Exodus 10:12 ἀναβαίνω Yahweh said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up on the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail has left."
- Exodus 12:38 ἀναβαίνω A mixed multitude went up also with them, with flocks, herds, and even very much cattle.
- Exodus 13:18 ἀναβαίνω but God led the people around by the way of the wilderness by the Red Sea; and the children of Israel went up armed out of the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 16:13 ἀναβαίνω It happened at evening that quail came up and covered the camp; and in the morning the dew lay around the camp.
- Exodus 17:10 ἀναβαίνω So Joshua did as Moses had told him, and fought with Amalek; and Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill.
- Exodus 19:3 ἀναβαίνω Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him out of the mountain, saying, "This is what you shall tell the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:
- Exodus 19:12 ἀναβαίνω You shall set bounds to the people round about, saying, 'Be careful that you don't go up onto the mountain, or touch its border. Whoever touches the mountain shall be surely put to death.
- Exodus 19:13 ἀναβαίνω No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it is animal or man, he shall not live.' When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come up to the mountain."
- Exodus 19:18 ἀναβαίνω Mount Sinai, the whole of it, smoked, because Yahweh descended on it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G305) 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.
