περιτέμνω
to circumcise
‘to circumcise’ is one of 4 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-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).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- 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).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
- 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.
4 verses where G4059 appears in the Present tense in the Book of Galatians. 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.
Galatians
- Galatians 5:2 περιτέμνησθε pres pass subj 2pl Behold, I, Paul, tell you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will profit you nothing.
- Galatians 5:3 περιτεμνομένῳ pres pass ptcp dat sg masc Yes, I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is a debtor to do the whole law.
- Galatians 6:12 περιτέμνεσθαι pres pass inf As many as desire to look good in the flesh, they compel you to be circumcised; only that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ.
- Galatians 6:13 περιτεμνόμενοι περιτέμνεσθαι pres pass ptcp nom pl masc pres pass inf For even they who receive circumcision don't keep the law themselves, but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may boast in your flesh.
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.
The Greek verb περιτεμνω centers on the idea of “to circumcise.” Thayer's distinguishes 4 senses for it. Spanning 15 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. Acts dominates its distribution — 5 of 15 verses. Debuting at Luke 1:59, it then recurs through the corpus. Dig into 15-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4059 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 →
- 15
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 15 distinct verses.
- 6 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 6 of 27 New Testament books.
- #697
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 697 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 15 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 15 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 7 verses · 47%
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 47%
- Gospels 3 verses · 20%
- Johannine 1 verse · 7%
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: Circumcise 4×, Be circumcised 3×, Circumcised 3×
- American Standard Version: Circumcise 4×, Circumcised 4×, Be circumcised 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Be circumcised 4×, Circumcised 3×, Circumcise 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Be circumcised 4×, Circumcise 4×, Circumcised 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4059 across 22 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 G4059 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 G4059 across 17 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4059 across 19 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.
Senses in Thayer's
The 4 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 cut around
- cut off one's prepuce (used of that well known rite by which not only the male children of the Israelites…
- to get one's self circumcised, present one's self to be circumcised, receive circumcision
- since by the rite of circumcision a man was separated from the unclean world and dedicated to God…
Word origin
Derived from περι (perí) (G4012) — about.
Forms in the corpus
The 13 distinct written forms G4059 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 G4059, 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
- περιαγω periágō G4013 to lead around
- περιαιρεω periairéō G4014 to take away
- περιαστραπτω periastráptō G4015 to shine around
- περιβαλλω peribállō G4016 to throw around
- περιβλεπω periblépō G4017 to look around
- περιδεω peridéō G4019 to bind around
- περιεργαζομαι periergázomai G4020 to bustle about
- περιεργος períergos G4021 busybody
- περιερχομαι periérchomai G4022 to go about
- περιεχω periéchō G4023 to surround
- περιζωννυμι perizṓnnymi G4024 to gird
- περιΐστημι periḯstēmi G4026 to stand around
- περικαθαρμα perikátharma G4027 scum
- περικαλυπτω perikalýptō G4028 to cover up
- περικειμαι períkeimai G4029 to lie around
- περικεφαλαια perikephalaía G4030 helmet
- περικρατης perikratḗs G4031 to have power over
- περικρυπτω perikrýptō G4032 to hide
- περικυκλοω perikyklóō G4033 to encircle
- περιλαμπω perilámpō G4034 to shine around
- περιλειπω perileípō G4035 to remain over
- περιλυπος perílypos G4036 deeply sorrowful
- περιμενω periménō G4037 to wait for
- περιξ périx G4038 round about
+17 more words share this root (not shown).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 44 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word περιτεμνω appears 32 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 30 verses in 7 books.
- 32
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 30
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 7 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 7 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 17:10 περιτέμνω
- Exodus 4:25 περιτέμνω
- Leviticus 12:3 περιτέμνω
- Deuteronomy 10:16 περιτέμνω
- Joshua 5:2 περιτέμνω
- Esther 8:17 περιτέμνω
- Jeremiah 4:4 περιτέμνω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4059) 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 17:10 περιτέμνω This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised.
- Genesis 17:11 περιτέμνω You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin. It will be a token of a covenant between me and you.
- Genesis 17:12 περιτέμνω He who is eight days old will be circumcised among you, every male throughout your generations, he who is born in the house, or bought with money of any foreigner who is not of your seed.
- Genesis 17:13 περιτέμνω He who is born in your house, and he who is bought with your money, must be circumcised. My covenant will be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
- Genesis 17:14 περιτέμνω The uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant."
- Genesis 17:23 περιτέμνω Abraham took Ishmael his son, all who were born in his house, and all who were bought with his money; every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the same day, as God had said to him.
- Genesis 17:24 περιτέμνω Abraham was ninety-nine years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
- Genesis 17:25 περιτέμνω Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
- Genesis 17:26 περιτέμνω In the same day both Abraham and Ishmael, his son, were circumcised.
- Genesis 17:27 περιτέμνω All the men of his house, those born in the house, and those bought with money of a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
- Genesis 21:4 περιτέμνω Abraham circumcised his son, Isaac, when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
- Genesis 34:15 περιτέμνω Only on this condition will we consent to you. If you will be as we are, that every male of you be circumcised;
- Genesis 34:17 περιτέμνω But if you will not listen to us, to be circumcised, then we will take our sister, and we will be gone."
- Genesis 34:22 περιτέμνω Only on this condition will the men consent to us to dwell with us, to become one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.
- Genesis 34:24 περιτέμνω All who went out of the gate of his city listened to Hamor, and to Shechem his son; and every male was circumcised, all who went out of the gate of his city.
- Exodus 4:25 περιτέμνω Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me."
- Exodus 12:44 περιτέμνω but every man's servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then shall he eat of it.
- Exodus 12:48 περιτέμνω When a stranger shall live as a foreigner with you, and will keep the Passover to Yahweh, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one who is born in the land: but no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.
- Leviticus 12:3 περιτέμνω In the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
- Deuteronomy 10:16 περιτέμνω Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.
- Joshua 5:2 περιτέμνω At that time Yahweh said to Joshua, Make you flint knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time.
- Joshua 5:3 περιτέμνω Joshua made himself flint knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins.
- Joshua 5:5 περιτέμνω For all the people who came out were circumcised; but all the people who were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, they had not circumcised.
- Joshua 5:7 περιτέμνω Their children, whom he raised up in their place, them did Joshua circumcise: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way.
- Joshua 5:8 περιτέμνω It happened, when they had done circumcising all the nation, that they abode in their places in the camp, until they were whole.
- Joshua 21:42 περιτέμνω These cities were every one with their suburbs round about them: thus it was with all these cities.
- Joshua 24:31 περιτέμνω Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, and had known all the work of Yahweh, that he had worked for Israel.
- Esther 8:17 περιτέμνω In every province, and in every city, wherever the king's commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy, a feast and a good day. Many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen on them.
- Jeremiah 4:4 περιτέμνω Circumcise yourselves to Yahweh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn so that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.
- Jeremiah 9:24 περιτέμνω but let him who glories glory in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am Yahweh who exercises loving kindness, justice, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, says Yahweh.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4059) 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.
