ὁράω
to see
‘to see’ 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 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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Pluperfect
- A past action completed before another past point (“had written”).
Voice
- Middle
- The subject acts on or for itself, or with special interest in the action.
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- Middle deponent
- Middle in form but active in meaning.
Mood
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- 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.”
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms 56 distinct
- Verb, Aorist, Middle, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular 199 times (29%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 62 times (9%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 54 times (8%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 42 times (6%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 41 times (6%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive 37 times (5%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular 34 times (5%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 28 times (4%)
+48 more forms (186 occurrences)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 683 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Page 4 of 4 — showing verses 601–626 of 626 distinct verses where G3708 appears, across 21 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.
Revelation 77 verses
- Revelation 17:3 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg 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 17:6 εἶδα ἰδὼν aor act ind 3pl aor act ptcp nom sg masc I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I wondered with great amazement.
- Revelation 17:8 εἶδες aor act ind 2sg The beast that you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into destruction. Those who dwell on the earth and whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see that the beast was, and is not, and shall be present.
- Revelation 17:12 εἶδες aor act ind 2sg 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 17:15 εἶδες aor act ind 2sg He said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages.
- Revelation 17:16 εἶδες aor act ind 2sg 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.
- Revelation 17:18 εἶδες aor act ind 2sg The woman whom you saw is the great city, which reigns over the kings of the earth."
- Revelation 18:1 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory.
- Revelation 18:7 ἴδω aor act subj 1sg However much she glorified herself, and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, 'I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.'
- Revelation 19:10 ὅρα pres act impv 2sg I fell down before his feet to worship him. He said to me, "Look! Don't do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy."
- Revelation 19:11 εἶδον ἰδοὺ aor act ind 1sg aor mid impv 2sg I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes war.
- Revelation 19:17 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, "Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God,
- Revelation 19:19 ἴδον aor act ind 1sg I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army.
- Revelation 20:1 ἴδον aor act ind 1sg I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand.
- Revelation 20:4 ἴδον aor act ind 1sg I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as didn't worship the beast nor his image, and didn't receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived, and reigned with Christ for the thousand years.
- Revelation 20:11 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.
- Revelation 20:12 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.
- Revelation 21:1 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.
- Revelation 21:2 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband.
- Revelation 21:3 ἰδοὺ aor mid impv 2sg I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, "Behold, God's dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
- Revelation 21:5 ἰδοὺ aor mid impv 2sg He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." He said, "Write, for these words of God are faithful and true."
- Revelation 21:22 εἶδον aor act ind 1sg I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.
- Revelation 22:4 ὄψονται fut mid.dep ind 3pl They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
- Revelation 22:7 ἰδοὺ aor mid impv 2sg "Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book."
- Revelation 22:9 ὅρα pres act impv 2sg He said to me, "See you don't do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."
- Revelation 22:12 Ἰδοὺ aor mid impv 2sg "Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me, to repay to each man according to his work.
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 see” is the headline sense of the Greek verb οραω (horáō). Where the King James Version says “seen,” newer translations reach for “saw” (Berean Standard Bible) and “behold” (unfoldingWord Literal Text); the renderings breakdown has the detail. The Greek New Testament uses it across 626 verses — among the most common. First canonically at Matthew 1:20, it enters the text early. Catalogued under 6 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G3708 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 →
- 626
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 626 distinct verses.
- 21 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 21 of 27 New Testament books.
- #27
- by frequency
- Top 50 most frequent Greek words (rank 27 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 626 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 626 distinct verses.
- Gospels 393 verses · 63%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 209 verses · 33%
- Johannine 165 verses · 26%
- Revelation 77 verses · 12%
- Pauline corpus 37 verses · 6%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 21 verses · 3%
- Hebrews 14 verses · 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: Seen 10×, See 8×, Take heed 5×
- American Standard Version: Seen 10×, See 7×, Hath seen 6×
- Berean Standard Bible: Saw 87×, See 51×, I saw 36×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Behold 224×, Having seen 76×, See 73×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G3708 across 67 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 19 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 G3708 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 19 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 G3708 across 445 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 63 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 3 further occurrences.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G3708 across 730 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 38 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.
- to see with the eyes
- to see with the mind, to perceive, know
- to see, i.e. become acquainted with by experience, to experience
- to take heed, beware
- to care for, pay heed to
- I was seen, showed myself, appeared
Word origin
Derived from οπτανομαι (optánomai) (G3700) — to look at.
Properly to stare at (compare G3700 ) that is (by implication) to discern clearly (physically or mentally); by extension to attend to; by hebraism to experience ; passively to appear : - behold perceive see take heed.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 76 distinct written forms G3708 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; 16 rarer forms follow in the full concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3708, 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
- ομμα ómma G3659 eye
- οπη opḗ G3692 opening
- οπισθεν ópisthen G3693 behind
- οπτασια optasía G3701 vision
- οφθαλμος ophthalmós G3788 eye
- οφις óphis G3789 serpent
- οφρυς ophrŷs G3790 eyebrow
- οψις ópsis G3799 face
- σκυθρωπος skythrōpós G4659 sad-faced
Derived from this word
- οπτανομαι optánomai G3700 to look at
- οραμα hórama G3705 vision
- ορασις hórasis G3706 sight
- ορατος horatós G3707 visible
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 15 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word οραω appears 1,200 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 1,119 verses in 37 books.
- 1,200
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 1,119
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 37 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 37 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 1:4 ὁράω
- Exodus 2:2 ὁράω
- Leviticus 5:1 ὁράω
- Numbers 1:49 ὁράω
- Deuteronomy 1:8 ὁράω
- Joshua 2:1 ὁράω
- Judges 1:24 ὁράω
- Ruth 1:18 ὁράω
- 1 Samuel 1:22 ὁράω
- 2 Samuel 1:7 ὁράω
- 1 Kings 3:5 ὁράω
- 2 Kings 2:10 ὁράω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3708) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 1,119. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 1:4 ὁράω God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
- Genesis 1:8 ὁράω God called the expanse sky. There was evening and there was morning, a second day.
- Genesis 1:9 ὁράω 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 1:10 ὁράω God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:12 ὁράω The earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, with its seed in it, after their kind: and God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:18 ὁράω and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:21 ὁράω God created the large sea creatures, and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:25 ὁράω God made the animals of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind. God saw that it was good.
- Genesis 1:31 ὁράω God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
- Genesis 2:19 ὁράω Out of the ground Yahweh God formed every animal of the field, and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
- Genesis 3:6 ὁράω When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit of it, and ate; and she gave some to her husband with her, and he ate.
- Genesis 6:2 ὁράω that God's sons saw that men's daughters were beautiful, and they took for themselves wives of all that they chose.
- Genesis 6:5 ὁράω Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
- Genesis 6:12 ὁράω God saw the earth, and saw that it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
- Genesis 7:1 ὁράω 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 8:5 ὁράω The waters receded continually until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.
- Genesis 8:7 ὁράω and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
- Genesis 8:8 ὁράω He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the surface of the ground,
- Genesis 8:13 ὁράω It happened in the six hundred first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked. He saw that the surface of the ground was dried.
- Genesis 9:14 ὁράω It will happen, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow will be seen in the cloud,
- Genesis 9:16 ὁράω The rainbow will be in the cloud. I will look at it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."
- Genesis 9:22 ὁράω Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
- Genesis 9:23 ὁράω Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it on both their shoulders, went in backwards, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were backwards, and they didn't see their father's nakedness.
- Genesis 11:5 ὁράω Yahweh came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.
- Genesis 12:7 ὁράω Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said, "I will give this land to your seed." He built an altar there to Yahweh, who appeared to him.
- Genesis 12:12 ὁράω It will happen, when the Egyptians will see you, that they will say, 'This is his wife.' They will kill me, but they will save you alive.
- Genesis 12:14 ὁράω It happened that when Abram had come into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.
- Genesis 12:15 ὁράω The princes of Pharaoh saw her, and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.
- Genesis 13:10 ὁράω Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
- Genesis 13:14 ὁράω Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot was separated from him, "Now, lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,
- Genesis 13:15 ὁράω for all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your offspring forever.
- Genesis 16:4 ὁράω He went in to Hagar, and she conceived. When she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.
- Genesis 16:5 ὁράω Sarai said to Abram, "This wrong is your fault. I gave my handmaid into your bosom, and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes. Yahweh judge between me and you."
- Genesis 16:13 ὁράω She called the name of Yahweh who spoke to her, "You are a God who sees," for she said, "Have I even stayed alive after seeing him?"
- Genesis 16:14 ὁράω Therefore the well was called Beer Lahai Roi. Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.
- Genesis 17:1 ὁράω When Abram was ninety-nine years old, Yahweh appeared to Abram, and said to him, "I am God Almighty. Walk before me, and be blameless.
- Genesis 18:1 ὁράω Yahweh appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day.
- Genesis 18:2 ὁράω He lifted up his eyes and looked, and saw that three men stood opposite him. When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself to the earth,
- Genesis 18:21 ὁράω I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come to me. If not, I will know."
- Genesis 19:1 ὁράω The two angels came to Sodom at evening. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, and rose up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the earth,
- Genesis 19:28 ὁράω 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 21:9 ὁράω Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.
- Genesis 21:16 ὁράω She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, "Don't let me see the death of the child." She sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.
- Genesis 21:19 ὁράω God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink.
- Genesis 22:4 ὁράω On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place far off.
- Genesis 22:8 ὁράω Abraham said, "God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son." So they both went together.
- Genesis 22:13 ὁράω 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.
- Genesis 22:14 ὁράω Abraham called the name of that place Yahweh-Jireh. As it is said to this day, "In Yahweh's mountain it will be provided.
- Genesis 24:30 ὁράω It happened, when he saw the ring, and the bracelets on his sister's hands, and when he heard the words of Rebekah his sister, saying, "This is what the man said to me," that he came to the man. Behold, he was standing by the camels at the spring.
- Genesis 24:63 ὁράω Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3708) 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.
