σέβομαι
to revere
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
- Verb
- An action or state-of-being word.
Tense
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Middle or Passive deponent
- Middle/passive in form but active in meaning.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- 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”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 2 times (20%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Infinitive 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Feminine 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Dative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine 1 time (10%)
- Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine 1 time (10%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 10 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G4576 appears — 10 distinct verses across 3 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 1 verse
Mark 1 verse
Acts 8 verses
- Acts 13:43 σεβομένων pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen pl masc Now when the synagogue broke up, many of the Jews and of the devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas; who, speaking to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
- Acts 13:50 σεβομένας pres mid/pass.dep ptcp acc pl fem But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, and stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and threw them out of their borders.
- Acts 16:14 σεβομένη pres mid/pass.dep ptcp nom sg fem A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul.
- Acts 17:4 σεβομένων pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen pl masc Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women.
- Acts 17:17 σεβομένοις pres mid/pass.dep ptcp dat pl masc So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.
- Acts 18:7 σεβομένου pres mid/pass.dep ptcp gen sg masc He departed there, and went into the house of a certain man named Justus, one who worshiped God, whose house was next door to the synagogue.
- Acts 18:13 σέβεσθαι pres mid/pass.dep inf saying, "This man persuades men to worship God contrary to the law."
- Acts 19:27 σέβεται pres mid/pass.dep ind 3sg Not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be counted as nothing, and her majesty destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worships."
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, σεβομαι (sébomai) means “to revere.” The word gravitates to Acts (80%), then Matthew and Mark. It appears 10 verses across 3 books of the Greek New Testament, among its uncommon vocabulary. First canonically at Matthew 15:9, it enters the text early. It shares a root with σεβαζομαι and σεμνος. 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 G4576 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,056
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,056 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 8 verses · 80%
- Gospels 2 verses · 20%
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: Devout 2×
- American Standard Version: Devout 3×, Do they worship 2×, Worshipped 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: God-fearing 2×, They worship 2×, Worshiper 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Worshiping 6×, They worship 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4576 across 10 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 G4576 across 10 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4576 across 10 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 4 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 G4576 across 10 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.
- to revere, to worship
Word origin
Origin: middle voice of an apparently primary verb
Middle voice of an apparently primary verb; to revere that is adore : - devout religious worship.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G4576 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σέβονταί sébontaí | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Matthew 15:9 | 2 |
| σεβομένων seboménōn | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Acts 13:43 | 2 |
| σέβεσθαι sébesthai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Infinitive | Acts 18:13 | 1 |
| σέβεται sébetai | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 19:27 | 1 |
| σεβομένας seboménas | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Feminine | Acts 13:50 | 1 |
| σεβομένη seboménē | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Acts 16:14 | 1 |
| σεβομένοις seboménois | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Dative, Plural, Masculine | Acts 17:17 | 1 |
| σεβομένου seboménou | Verb, Present, Middle or Passive deponent, Participle, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | Acts 18:7 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4576, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word σεβομαι appears 9 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 9 verses in 5 books.
- 9
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 9
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 5 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 5 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Joshua 4:24 σέβω
- Job 1:9 σέβομαι
- Isaiah 29:13 σέβομαι
- Daniel 3:33 σέβω
- Jonah 1:9 σέβομαι
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4576) 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.
- Joshua 4:24 σέβω that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of Yahweh, that it is mighty; that you may fear Yahweh your God forever.
- Joshua 22:25 σέβω for Yahweh has made the Jordan a border between us and you, you children of Reuben and children of Gad; you have no portion in Yahweh: so might your children make our children cease from fearing Yahweh.
- Joshua 24:33 σέβω Eleazar the son of Aaron died; and they buried him in the hill of Phinehas his son, which was given him in the hill-country of Ephraim.
- Job 1:9 σέβομαι Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "Does Job fear God for nothing?
- Isaiah 29:13 σέβομαι The Lord said, Because this people draw near [to me], and with their mouth and with their lips to honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men which has been taught [them];
- Isaiah 66:14 σέβομαι You shall see [it], and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hand of Yahweh shall be known toward his servants; and he will have indignation against his enemies.
- Daniel 3:33 σέβω
- Daniel 3:90 σέβω
- Jonah 1:9 σέβομαι He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear Yahweh, the God of heaven, who has made the sea and the dry land."
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4576) 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.
