πένθος
mourning
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G3997 appears in the Book of James — 1 distinct verse. 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.
James
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.
“mourning” is the headline sense of the Greek noun πενθος (pénthos). The Greek New Testament uses it only 4 verses. It clusters heavily in Revelation, which alone accounts for 75% of its uses. Its earliest occurrence is James 4:9. It clusters with πασχω, παθος and πενθεω under a shared root. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G3997 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 →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 2 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 2 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,648
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,648 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Revelation 3 verses 75%
- James 1 verse 25%
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 4 distinct verses.
- Johannine 3 verses · 75%
- Revelation 3 verses · 75%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 25%
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: Sorrow 3×, Mourning 2×
- American Standard Version: Mourning 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Grief 3×, Mourning 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Mourning 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G3997 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G3997 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G3997 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G3997 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 2 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.
- mourning
Word origin
Derived from πασχω (páschō) (G3958) — to feel.
strengthened from the alternate of G3958 ; grief : - mourning sorrow.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G3997, 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
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πενθος appears 31 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 28 verses in 14 books.
- 31
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 28
- 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 27:41 πένθος
- Deuteronomy 34:8 πένθος
- 2 Samuel 11:27 πένθος
- Ezra 10:6 πένθος
- Esther 4:3 πένθος
- Proverbs 10:6 πένθος
- Ecclesiastes 5:16 πένθος
- Isaiah 16:3 πένθος
- Jeremiah 6:26 πένθος
- Lamentations 5:15 πένθος
- Ezekiel 24:17 πένθος
- Hosea 9:4 πένθος
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G3997) 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 27:41 πένθος Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father blessed him. Esau said in his heart, "The days of mourning for my father are at hand. Then I will kill my brother Jacob."
- Genesis 35:8 πένθος Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, died, and she was buried below Bethel under the oak; and the name of it was called Allon Bacuth.
- Genesis 50:4 πένθος When the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, "If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,
- Genesis 50:10 πένθος They came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they lamented with a very great and sore lamentation. He mourned for his father seven days.
- Genesis 50:11 πένθος When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, "This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians." Therefore, the name of it was called Abel Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.
- Deuteronomy 34:8 πένθος The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.
- 2 Samuel 11:27 πένθος When the mourning was past, David sent and took her home to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased Yahweh.
- 2 Samuel 19:3 πένθος The people got them by stealth that day into the city, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle.
- Ezra 10:6 πένθος Then Ezra rose up from before the house of God, and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib: and [when] he came there, he ate no bread, nor drink water; for he mourned because of the trespass of them of the captivity.
- Esther 4:3 πένθος In every province, wherever the king's commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
- Esther 9:22 πένθος as the days in which the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the needy.
- Proverbs 10:6 πένθος Blessings are on the head of the righteous, But violence covers the mouth of the wicked.
- Proverbs 14:13 πένθος Even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful, And mirth may end in heaviness.
- Ecclesiastes 5:16 πένθος This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?
- Ecclesiastes 7:2 πένθος It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart.
- Ecclesiastes 7:4 πένθος The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
- Isaiah 16:3 πένθος Give counsel, execute justice; make your shade as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts; don't betray the fugitive.
- Isaiah 17:14 πένθος At evening, behold, terror; [and] before the morning they are no more. This is the portion of those who despoil us, and the lot of those who rob us.
- Isaiah 60:20 πένθος Your sun shall no more go down, neither shall your moon withdraw itself; for Yahweh will be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended.
- Jeremiah 6:26 πένθος Daughter of my people, gird you with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes: make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
- Jeremiah 16:7 πένθος neither shall men break [bread] for them in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
- Jeremiah 38:13 πένθος So they drew up Jeremiah with the cords, and took him up out of the dungeon: and Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.
- Lamentations 5:15 πένθος The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.
- Ezekiel 24:17 πένθος Sigh, but not aloud, make no mourning for the dead; bind your headdress on you, and put your shoes on your feet, and don't cover your lips, and don't eat men's bread.
- Hosea 9:4 πένθος They won't pour out wine offerings to Yahweh, Neither will they be pleasing to him. Their sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; All who eat of it will be polluted; For their bread will be for their appetite. It will not come into the house of Yahweh.
- Amos 5:16 πένθος Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, the Lord: "Wailing will be in all the broad ways; And they will say in all the streets, 'Alas! Alas!' And they will call the farmer to mourning, And those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
- Amos 8:10 πένθος I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; And I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, And baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, And the end of it like a bitter day.
- Micah 1:8 πένθος For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, And moan like the daughters of owls.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G3997) 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.
