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πληρόω

to fulfill

‘to fulfill’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓

G4137 Strong's Greek
plēróō Transliteration
/play-ro'-o/ Pronunciation
Usage in the GNT 86 appearances

Compare with another word →

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.

πληροω (plēróō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to fulfill.” The King James Version usually renders it “might be fulfilled,” while modern versions prefer “fulfill” (Berean Standard Bible) — see the renderings breakdown. With 86 verses in 17 books, it is a moderately common word in the Greek New Testament. Debuting at Matthew 1:22, it then recurs through the corpus. Its lexical range runs to 2 senses. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.

Gloss history

Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship

Strong's · 1890
accomplish
Modern gloss
to fulfill
Strong's 1890 sometimes compressed multiple senses — or homonymous roots — under one number, and used 19th-century English phrasing that no longer carries the same connotation. The modern gloss reflects current Thayer scholarship; open the Lexicon Entry tab for the full sense breakdown. Download share card

About this word

Strong's G4137 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 →

86
distinct verses
The word appears in 86 distinct verses.
17 / 27
NT books
The word appears in 17 of 27 New Testament books.
Matthew 1:22
first appearance
The earliest occurrence is in Matthew 1:22.
Revelation 6:11
last appearance
The latest occurrence is in Revelation 6:11.
#199
by frequency
Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 199 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).

View all 86 occurrences in the concordance →


Most concentrated in

By section of the New Testament

  • Gospels 42 · 49%
  • Acts 16 · 19%
  • Pauline Epistles 23 · 27%
  • General Epistles 3 · 3%
  • Revelation 2 · 2%

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 86 distinct verses.

  • Gospels 42 verses · 49%
  • Lukan (Luke–Acts) 25 verses · 29%
  • Pauline corpus 23 verses · 27%
  • Johannine 19 verses · 22%
  • General (Catholic) Epistles 3 verses · 3%
  • Revelation 2 verses · 2%

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: Might be fulfilled 17×, Be fulfilled 6×, Filled 5×
  • American Standard Version: Might be fulfilled 17×, Made full 5×, Filled 4×
  • Berean Standard Bible: Fulfill 12×, Was fulfilled 5×, Complete 4×
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text: Might be fulfilled 14×, Fulfill 5×, Would be fulfilled 5×

King James Version Public Domain

Renders G4137 across 95 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Might be fulfilled” 17×
  • “Be fulfilled” 6×
  • “Filled” 5×
  • “Fulfil” 4×
  • “Fulfilled” 4×
  • “Full” 4×
  • “Is fulfilled” 4×
  • “Was fulfilled” 4×
  • “Complete” 2×
  • “Fill” 2×
  • “Is” 2×
  • “May be fulfilled” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 35 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 G4137 across 96 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Might be fulfilled” 17×
  • “Made full” 5×
  • “Filled” 4×
  • “Fulfil” 4×
  • “Fulfilled” 4×
  • “May be fulfilled” 3×
  • “Was fulfilled” 3×
  • “Be fulfilled” 2×
  • “Fill” 2×
  • “Hath” 2×
  • “I am filled” 2×
  • “Is fulfilled” 2×

Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 38 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 G4137 across 85 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Fulfill” 12×
  • “Was fulfilled” 5×
  • “Complete” 4×
  • “Is fulfilled” 4×
  • “Would be fulfilled” 4×
  • “Be fulfilled” 3×
  • “Had passed” 3×
  • “Fill” 2×
  • “Filled” 2×
  • “Fulfilled” 2×
  • “Has fulfilled” 2×

Plus 42 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 G4137 across 91 tagged occurrences — most commonly:

  • “Might be fulfilled” 14×
  • “Fulfill” 5×
  • “Would be fulfilled” 5×
  • “Filled” 4×
  • “Fulfilled” 4×
  • “Was fulfilled” 4×
  • “Be fulfilled” 3×
  • “Has been fulfilled” 3×
  • “Was filled” 3×
  • “Has” 2×
  • “I have been filled” 2×
  • “Were filled” 2×

Plus 40 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.

  1. to make full, to fill up, i.e. to fill to the full
  2. to render full, i.e. to complete

Word origin

Derived from πληρης (plḗrēs) (G4134) — full.

Part of speech: Verb TDNT: 10:46,9

From G4134 ; to make replete that is (literally) to cram (a net) level up (a hollow) or (figuratively) to furnish (or imbue diffuse influence ) satisfy execute (an office) finish (a period or task) verify (or coincide with a prediction) etc. : - accomplish X after (be) complete end expire fill (up) fulfil (be make) full (come) fully preach perfect supply.

— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.


Forms in the corpus

The 39 distinct written forms G4137 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.

Form Parsing Example Uses
πληρωθῇ plērōthē̂ Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 1:22 20
ἐπληρώθη eplērṓthē Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Matthew 2:17 6
πεπλήρωται peplḗrōtai Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Mark 1:15 5
πληρωθῶσιν plērōthō̂sin Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Matthew 26:54 4
ἐπλήρωσεν eplḗrōsen Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 7:1 4
πεπληρωμένη peplērōménē Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine John 16:24 3
πεπληρωμένοι peplērōménoi Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Romans 15:14 3
πληρῶσαι plērō̂sai Verb, Aorist, Active, Infinitive Matthew 3:15 3
πεπλήρωκεν peplḗrōken Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular John 16:6 2
πεπλήρωμαι peplḗrōmai Verb, Perfect, Passive, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 2 Corinthians 7:4 2
πληρωθῆναι plērōthē̂nai Verb, Aorist, Passive, Infinitive Luke 24:44 2
πληρωθῆτε plērōthē̂te Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Plural Ephesians 3:19 2
πληρώσῃ plērṓsē Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular Ephesians 4:10 2
ἐπλήρωσαν eplḗrōsan Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 13:27 2
ἐπληροῦντο eplēroûnto Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Acts 9:23 2
πεπληρωκέναι peplērōkénai Verb, Perfect, Active, Infinitive Romans 15:19 1
πεπληρωμένα peplērōména Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Neuter Revelation 3:2 1
πεπληρωμένην peplērōménēn Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Feminine John 17:13 1
πεπληρωμένους peplērōménous Verb, Perfect, Passive, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine Romans 1:29 1
πεπληρώκατε peplērṓkate Verb, Perfect, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural Acts 5:28 1
πληρουμένου plērouménou Verb, Present, Middle, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine Ephesians 1:23 1
πληρούμενον plēroúmenon Verb, Present, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Neuter Luke 2:40 1
πληροῖς plēroîs Verb, Present, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Singular Colossians 4:17 1
πληροῦν plēroûn Verb, Present, Active, Infinitive Luke 9:31 1
πληροῦσθε plēroûsthe Verb, Present, Passive, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Ephesians 5:18 1
πληρωθέντων plērōthéntōn Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Neuter Acts 7:30 1
πληρωθήσεται plērōthḗsetai Verb, Future, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Luke 3:5 1
πληρωθήσονται plērōthḗsontai Verb, Future, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural Luke 1:20 1
πληρωθείσης plērōtheísēs Verb, Aorist, Passive, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Feminine Acts 24:27 1
πληρωθῶ plērōthō̂ Verb, Aorist, Passive, Subjunctive, 1st person, Singular 2 Timothy 1:4 1
πληρώσαι plērṓsai Verb, Aorist, Active, Optative, 3rd person, Singular Romans 15:13 1
πληρώσαντες plērṓsantes Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine Acts 12:25 1
πληρώσατέ plērṓsaté Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Philippians 2:2 1
πληρώσατε plērṓsate Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural Matthew 23:32 1
πληρώσει plērṓsei Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Philippians 4:19 1
πληρώσεις plērṓseis Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular Acts 2:28 1
πληρώσωσιν plērṓsōsin Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Plural Revelation 6:11 1
ἐπλήρου eplḗrou Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Acts 13:25 1
ἐπληροῦτο eplēroûto Verb, Imperfect, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular Acts 7:23 1

Same root — word family

Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4137, 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 πληροω appears 78 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 77 verses in 21 books.

78
LXX occurrences
Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
77
verses
Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
21 / 39
OT books
The word appears in 21 of the 39 Old Testament books.

Sample Septuagint occurrences

Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)

Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4137) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 77. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.

These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4137) 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.

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

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