πέμπω
to send
‘to send’ is one of 2 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.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- 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.
- 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.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Person
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
27 verses where G3992 appears in the Aorist 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 1:22 πέμψασιν aor act ptcp dat pl masc They said therefore to him, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?"
- John 1:33 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc I didn't recognize him, but he who sent me to baptize in water, he said to me, 'On whomever you will see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.'
- John 4:34 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.
- John 5:23 πέμψαντα aor act ptcp acc sg masc that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn't honor the Son doesn't honor the Father who sent him.
- John 5:24 πέμψαντί aor act ptcp dat sg masc "Most assuredly I tell you, he who hears my word, and believes him who sent me, has eternal life, and doesn't come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
- John 5:30 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous; because I don't seek my own will, but the will of my Father who sent me.
- John 5:37 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc The Father himself, who sent me, has testified about me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form.
- John 6:38 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
- John 6:39 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing, but should raise him up at the last day.
- John 6:44 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day.
- John 7:16 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc Jesus therefore answered them, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
- John 7:18 πέμψαντος aor act ptcp gen sg masc He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.
- John 7:28 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, "You both know me, and know where I am from. I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you don't know.
- John 7:33 πέμψαντά aor act ptcp acc sg masc Then Jesus said, "I will be with you a little while longer, then I go to him who sent me.
- John 8:16 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc Even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me.
- John 8:18 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me."
- John 8:26 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. However he who sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these I say to the world."
- John 8:29 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc He who sent me is with me. The Father hasn't left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him."
- John 9:4 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc I must work the works of him who sent me, while it is day. The night is coming, when no one can work.
- John 12:44 πέμψαντά aor act ptcp acc sg masc Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
- John 12:45 πέμψαντά aor act ptcp acc sg masc He who sees me sees him who sent me.
- John 12:49 πέμψας aor act ptcp nom sg masc For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
- John 13:16 πέμψαντος aor act ptcp gen sg masc Most assuredly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his lord, neither one who is sent greater than he who sent him.
- John 13:20 πέμψω πέμψαντά aor act subj 1sg aor act ptcp acc sg masc Most assuredly I tell you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me, receives him who sent me."
- John 14:24 πέμψαντός aor act ptcp gen sg masc He who doesn't love me doesn't keep my words. The word which you hear isn't mine, but the Father's who sent me.
- John 15:21 πέμψαντά aor act ptcp acc sg masc But all these things will they do to you for my name's sake, because they don't know him who sent me.
- John 16:5 πέμψαντά aor act ptcp acc sg masc But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?'
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.
πεμπω (pémpō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to send.” Its English rendering has broadened — “sent” classically, “having sent” (unfoldingWord Literal Text) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. The Greek New Testament uses it across 78 verses — moderately common. John dominates its distribution — 31 of 78 verses. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. 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 G3992 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.
- 16 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 16 of 27 New Testament books.
- #214
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 214 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 78 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 78 distinct verses.
- Gospels 46 verses · 59%
- Johannine 36 verses · 46%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 21 verses · 27%
- Pauline corpus 15 verses · 19%
- Revelation 5 verses · 6%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 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: Sent 23×, Send 14×, He sent 7×
- American Standard Version: Sent 28×, Send 12×, He sent 8×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sent 33×, Send 14×, He sent 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Having sent 32×, Send 12×, I sent 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G3992 across 82 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 12 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 G3992 across 80 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 16 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 G3992 across 79 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 11 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 G3992 across 80 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 20 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 2 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 bid a thing to be carried to one
- to send (thrust or insert) a thing into another
Word origin
Origin: apparently a root word
Apparently a primary verb; to dispatch (from the subjective view or point of departure whereas ἵημι hiē mi [as a stronger form of εἶμι eimi] refers rather to the objective point or terminus ad quem and G4724 denotes properly the orderly motion involved) especially on a temporary errand; also to transmit bestow or wield : - send thrust in.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 25 distinct written forms G3992 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πεμπω appears 5 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 5 verses in 3 books.
- 5
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 5
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 27:42 πέμπω
- Ezra 4:14 πέμπω
- Esther 8:5 πέμπω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3992) 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 27:42 πέμπω The words of Esau, her elder son, were told to Rebekah. She sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, "Behold, your brother Esau comforts himself about you by planning to kill you.
- Ezra 4:14 πέμπω Now because we eat the salt of the palace, and it is not appropriate for us to see the king's dishonor, therefore have we sent and informed the king;
- Ezra 5:17 πέμπω Now therefore, if it seem good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure-house, which is there at Babylon, whether it be so, that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house of God at Jerusalem; and let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter.
- Ezra 12:5 πέμπω
- Esther 8:5 πέμπω She said, If it please the king, and if I have found favor in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews who are in all the king's provinces:
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3992) 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.
