ἀναχωρέω
to return
‘to return’ is one of 3 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).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
1 verse where G402 appears in the Present tense in the Book of Matthew. 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.
Matthew
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, αναχωρεω (anachōréō) means “to return.” The word gravitates to Matthew (77%), then Acts and Mark. It appears 13 verses across 3 books of the Greek New Testament, among its uncommon vocabulary. Scripture first uses it in Matthew 2:12. Ranging over 3 senses, it is not a single-sense word. 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 G402 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 →
- 13
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 13 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #863
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 863 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 13 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 13 distinct verses.
- Gospels 11 verses · 85%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 2 verses · 15%
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: Departed 3×, He departed 3×
- American Standard Version: Withdrew 4×, Departed 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Withdrew 5×, He withdrew 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Withdrew 5×, He withdrew 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G402 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 G402 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 8 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 G402 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 G402 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 3 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 go back, return
- so as to leave a room
- of those who through fear seek some other place, or shun sight
Word origin
Derived from ανα (aná) (G303) — among.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G402 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀνεχώρησεν anechṓrēsen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 2:14 | 8 |
| ἀναχωρήσαντες anachōrḗsantes | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Acts 26:31 | 1 |
| ἀναχωρήσας anachōrḗsas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 23:19 | 1 |
| ἀναχωρεῖτε anachōreîte | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural | Matthew 9:24 | 1 |
| ἀνεχώρησαν anechṓrēsan | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Matthew 2:12 | 1 |
| Ἀναχωρησάντων Anachōrēsántōn | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Matthew 2:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G402, 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
- αναβαινω anabaínō G305 to ascend
- 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
+51 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 77 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αναχωρεω appears 10 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 10 verses in 9 books.
- 10
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 10
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 2:15 ἀναχωρέω
- Numbers 16:24 ἀναχωρέω
- Joshua 8:15 ἀναχωρέω
- 1 Samuel 19:10 ἀναχωρέω
- 2 Samuel 4:4 ἀναχωρέω
- Psalms 113:5 ἀναχωρέω
- Proverbs 25:9 ἀναχωρέω
- Jeremiah 4:29 ἀναχωρέω
- Hosea 12:13 ἀναχωρέω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G402) 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.
- Exodus 2:15 ἀναχωρέω Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.
- Numbers 16:24 ἀναχωρέω Speak to the congregation, saying, Get away from around the tent of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
- Joshua 8:15 ἀναχωρέω Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled by the way of the wilderness.
- 1 Samuel 19:10 ἀναχωρέω Saul sought to strike David even to the wall with the spear; but he slipped away out of Saul's presence, and he struck the spear into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night.
- 1 Samuel 25:10 ἀναχωρέω Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there are many servants now-a-days who break away every man from his master.
- 2 Samuel 4:4 ἀναχωρέω Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son who was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the news came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.
- Psalms 113:5 ἀναχωρέω Who is like Yahweh, our God, Who has his seat on high,
- Proverbs 25:9 ἀναχωρέω Debate your case with your neighbor, And don't betray the confidence of another;
- Jeremiah 4:29 ἀναχωρέω Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.
- Hosea 12:13 ἀναχωρέω By a prophet Yahweh brought Israel up out of Egypt, And by a prophet he was preserved.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G402) 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.
