πλήν
moreover
also: besides, but, nevertheless fuller range ↓
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
- Adverb
- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb.
Every verse where G4133 appears — 31 distinct verses across 9 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.
Matthew 5 verses
- Matthew 11:22 πλὴν adv But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
- Matthew 11:24 πλὴν adv But I tell you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, on the day of judgment, than for you."
- Matthew 18:7 πλὴν adv "Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must be that the occasions come, but woe to that person through whom the occasion comes!
- Matthew 26:39 πλὴν adv He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire."
- Matthew 26:64 πλὴν adv Jesus said to him, "You have said it. Nevertheless, I tell you, henceforth you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of the sky."
Mark 1 verse
Luke 14 verses
- Luke 6:24 Πλὴν adv "But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation.
- Luke 6:35 Πλὴν adv But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back; and your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.
- Luke 10:11 πλὴν adv 'Even the dust from your city that clings to us, we wipe off against you. Nevertheless know this, that the Kingdom of God has come near to you.'
- Luke 10:14 πλὴν adv But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.
- Luke 10:20 πλὴν adv Nevertheless, don't rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."
- Luke 11:41 πλὴν adv But give for gifts to the needy those things which are within, and behold, all things will be clean to you.
- Luke 12:31 πλὴν adv But seek God's Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.
- Luke 13:33 πλὴν adv Nevertheless I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the next day, for it can't be that a prophet perish outside of Jerusalem.'
- Luke 18:8 πλὴν adv I tell you that he will avenge them quickly. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"
- Luke 19:27 πλὴν adv But bring those enemies of mine who didn't want me to reign over them here, and kill them before me.'"
- Luke 22:21 Πλὴν adv But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.
- Luke 22:22 πλὴν adv The Son of Man indeed goes, as it has been determined, but woe to that man through whom he is betrayed!"
- Luke 22:42 πλὴν adv saying, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done."
- Luke 23:28 πλὴν adv But Jesus, turning to them, said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
John 1 verse
Acts 4 verses
- Acts 8:1 πλὴν adv Saul was consenting to his death. A great persecution arose against the assembly which was in Jerusalem in that day. They were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except for the apostles.
- Acts 15:28 πλὴν adv For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things:
- Acts 20:23 πλὴν adv except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions wait for me.
- Acts 27:22 πλὴν adv Now I exhort you to cheer up, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.
1 Corinthians 1 verse
Ephesians 1 verse
Philippians 3 verses
- Philippians 1:18 πλὴν adv What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. I rejoice in this, yes, and will rejoice.
- Philippians 3:16 πλὴν adv Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind.
- Philippians 4:14 πλὴν adv However you did well that you shared in my affliction.
Revelation 1 verse
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, πλην (plḗn) means “moreover.” Scripture first uses it in Matthew 11:22. It turns up in 31 verses across 9 books, a moderately common footprint. The word gravitates to Luke (45%), then Matthew and Acts. Not a single-sense word, it carries 2 senses, among them “besides”, “but”, and “nevertheless”. 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 G4133 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 →
- 31
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 31 distinct verses.
- 9 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 9 of 27 New Testament books.
- #448
- by frequency
- Top 500 most frequent Greek words (rank 448 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 31 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 31 distinct verses.
- Gospels 21 verses · 68%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 18 verses · 58%
- Pauline corpus 5 verses · 16%
- Johannine 2 verses · 6%
- Revelation 1 verse · 3%
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: But 14×, Nevertheless 8×, Notwithstanding 4×
- American Standard Version: But 12×, Nevertheless 10×
- Berean Standard Bible: But 13×, Nevertheless 6×, Yet 3×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: But 13×, Nevertheless 7×, Only 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4133 across 31 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 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 G4133 across 30 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 G4133 across 29 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4133 across 31 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 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.
- moreover, besides, but, nevertheless
- besides, except, but
Word origin
Derived from πλειων (pleíōn) (G4119) — greater.
From G4119 ; moreover ( besides ) that is albeit save that rather yet : - but (rather) except nevertheless notwithstanding save than.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms G4133 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| πλὴν plḕn | Adverb | Matthew 11:22 | 28 |
| Πλὴν Plḕn | Adverb | Luke 6:24 | 3 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4133, 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
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word πλην appears 198 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 189 verses in 28 books.
- 198
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 189
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 28 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 28 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 9:4 πλήν
- Exodus 8:5 πλήν
- Leviticus 11:4 πλήν
- Numbers 5:8 πλήν
- Deuteronomy 1:36 πλήν
- Joshua 1:17 πλήν
- Judges 3:2 πλήν
- 1 Samuel 1:5 πλήν
- 2 Samuel 2:10 πλήν
- 1 Kings 2:35 πλήν
- 2 Kings 1:18 πλήν
- 1 Chronicles 3:9 πλήν
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4133) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 189. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 9:4 πλήν But flesh with the life of it, the blood of it, you shall not eat.
- Genesis 14:24 πλήν Except only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre: let them take their portion."
- Genesis 39:6 πλήν He left all that he had in Joseph's hand. He didn't concern himself with anything, except for the food which he ate. Joseph was well-built and handsome.
- Genesis 39:9 πλήν He isn't greater in this house than I, neither has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"
- Genesis 41:40 πλήν You shall be over my house, and according to your word will all my people be ruled. Only in the throne I will be greater than you."
- Exodus 8:5 πλήν Yahweh said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Stretch forth your hand with your rod over the rivers, over the streams, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up on the land of Egypt.'"
- Exodus 8:6 πλήν Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 8:7 πλήν The magicians did in like manner with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 9:26 πλήν Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, there was no hail.
- Exodus 10:24 πλήν Pharaoh called to Moses, and said, "Go, serve Yahweh. Only let your flocks and your herds stay behind. Let your little ones also go with you."
- Exodus 12:16 πλήν In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no manner of work shall be done in them, except that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you.
- Exodus 12:37 πλήν The children of Israel traveled from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand on foot who were men, besides children.
- Exodus 20:3 πλήν You shall have no other gods before me.
- Exodus 21:19 πλήν if he rises again and walks around with his staff, then he who struck him shall be cleared: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall provide for his healing until he is thoroughly healed.
- Exodus 22:19 πλήν "Whoever has sex with an animal shall surely be put to death.
- Leviticus 11:4 πλήν "'Nevertheless these you shall not eat of those that chew the cud, or of those who part the hoof: the camel, because he chews the cud but doesn't have a parted hoof, he is unclean to you.
- Leviticus 11:36 πλήν Nevertheless a spring or a cistern in which water is a gathered shall be clean: but that which touches their carcass shall be unclean.
- Leviticus 21:23 πλήν He shall not come near to the veil, nor come near to the altar, because he has a blemish; that he may not profane my sanctuaries, for I am Yahweh who sanctifies them.'"
- Leviticus 23:38 πλήν besides the Sabbaths of Yahweh, and besides your gifts, and besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings, which you give to Yahweh.
- Numbers 5:8 πλήν But if the man has no kinsman to whom restitution may be made for the guilt, the restitution for guilt which is made to Yahweh shall be the priest's; besides the ram of the atonement, by which atonement shall be made for him.
- Numbers 5:20 πλήν But if you have gone astray, being under your husband, and if you are defiled, and some man has lain with you besides your husband:'
- Numbers 11:6 πλήν but now our soul is dried away; there is nothing at all save this manna to look on.
- Numbers 18:3 πλήν They shall keep your charge, and the charge of all the Tent: only they shall not come near to the vessels of the sanctuary and to the altar, that they not die, neither they, nor you.
- Numbers 18:17 πλήν But the firstborn of a cow, or the firstborn of a sheep, or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem; they are holy: you shall sprinkle their blood on the altar, and shall burn their fat for an offering made by fire, for a sweet savor to Yahweh.
- Numbers 22:35 πλήν The angel of Yahweh said to Balaam, Go with the men; but only the word that I shall speak to you, that you shall speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.
- Numbers 26:65 πλήν For Yahweh had said of them, They shall surely die in the wilderness. There was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
- Numbers 28:23 πλήν You shall offer these besides the burnt offering of the morning, which is for a continual burnt offering.
- Numbers 28:31 πλήν Besides the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, you shall offer them (they shall be to you without blemish), and their drink-offerings.
- Numbers 29:6 πλήν besides the burnt offering of the new moon, and the meal-offering of it, and the continual burnt offering and the meal-offering of it, and their drink-offerings, according to their ordinance, for a sweet savor, an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
- Numbers 29:11 πλήν one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the sin-offering of atonement, and the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, and their drink-offerings.
- Numbers 29:16 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering, besides the continual burnt offering, the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:19 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, and their drink-offerings.
- Numbers 29:22 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:25 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the continual burnt offering, the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:28 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering, besides the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:31 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the continual burnt offering, the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offerings of it.
- Numbers 29:34 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering; besides the continual burnt offering, the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:38 πλήν and one male goat for a sin-offering, besides the continual burnt offering, and the meal-offering of it, and the drink-offering of it.
- Numbers 29:39 πλήν These you shall offer to Yahweh in your set feasts, besides your vows, and your freewill-offerings, for your burnt offerings, and for your meal-offerings, and for your drink-offerings, and for your peace-offerings.
- Numbers 31:22 πλήν however the gold, and the silver, the brass, the iron, the tin, and the lead,
- Numbers 32:12 πλήν save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun; because they have wholly followed Yahweh.
- Numbers 36:6 πλήν This is the thing which Yahweh does command concerning the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, Let them be married to whom they think best; only into the family of the tribe of their father shall they be married.
- Deuteronomy 1:36 πλήν save Caleb the son of Jephunneh: he shall see it; and to him will I give the land that he has trodden on, and to his children, because he has wholly followed Yahweh.
- Deuteronomy 2:28 πλήν You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat; and give me water for money, that I may drink: only let me pass through on my feet,
- Deuteronomy 2:35 πλήν only the cattle we took for a prey to ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we had taken.
- Deuteronomy 2:37 πλήν only to the land of the children of Ammon you didn't come near; all the side of the river Jabbok, and the cities of the hill-country, and wherever Yahweh our God forbade us.
- Deuteronomy 3:5 πλήν All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars; besides the unwalled towns a great many.
- Deuteronomy 3:11 πλήν (For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; isn't it in Rabbah of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length of it, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.)
- Deuteronomy 3:19 πλήν But your wives, and your little ones, and your cattle, (I know that you have much cattle), shall abide in your cities which I have given you,
- Deuteronomy 4:35 πλήν To you it was shown, that you might know that Yahweh he is God; there is none else besides him.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4133) 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.
