σεισμός
earthquake
‘earthquake’ 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 Nominative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine 9 times (64%)
- Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 3 times (21%)
- Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine 1 time (7%)
- Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine 1 time (7%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 14 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G4578 appears — 12 distinct verses across 5 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 4 verses
- Matthew 8:24 σεισμὸς n nom sg masc Behold, a great tempest arose in the sea, so much that the boat was covered with the waves, but he was asleep.
- Matthew 24:7 σεισμοὶ n nom pl masc For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.
- Matthew 27:54 σεισμὸν n acc sg masc Now the centurion, and those who were with him watching Jesus, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying, "Truly this was the Son of God."
- Matthew 28:2 σεισμὸς n nom sg masc Behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from the sky, and came and rolled away the stone from the door, and sat on it.
Mark 1 verse
Luke 1 verse
Acts 1 verse
Revelation 5 verses
- Revelation 6:12 σεισμὸς n nom sg masc I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became as blood.
- Revelation 8:5 σεισμός n nom sg masc The angel took the censer, and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it on the earth. There followed thunders, sounds, lightnings, and an earthquake.
- Revelation 11:13 σεισμὸς σεισμῷ n nom sg masc n dat sg masc In that day there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
- Revelation 11:19 σεισμὸς n nom sg masc God's temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord's covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.
- Revelation 16:18 σεισμὸς σεισμὸς n nom sg masc n nom sg masc There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men on the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty.
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.
“earthquake” is the headline sense of the Greek noun σεισμος (seismós). First canonically at Matthew 8:24, it enters the text early. It turns up in 12 verses across 5 books, an uncommon footprint. It concentrates in Revelation, which alone accounts for 42% of its uses. Catalogued under 3 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. See the sense tree, 12-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4578 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 →
- 12
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 12 distinct verses.
- 5 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 5 of 27 New Testament books.
- #814
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 814 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 12 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Revelation 5 verses 42%
- Matthew 4 verses 33%
- Mark 1 verse 8%
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 12 distinct verses.
- Gospels 6 verses · 50%
- Johannine 5 verses · 42%
- Revelation 5 verses · 42%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 2 verses · 17%
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: Earthquake 10×, Earthquakes 3×
- American Standard Version: Earthquake 10×, Earthquakes 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Earthquake 8×, Earthquakes 3×, Quake 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Earthquake 10×, A 6×, Earthquakes 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4578 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4578 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4578 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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 G4578 across 20 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 1 rendering that appears 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.
- a shaking, a commotion
- a tempest
- an earthquake
Word origin
Derived from σειω (seíō) (G4579) — to shake.
From G4579 ; a commotion that is (of the air) a gale (of the ground) an earthquake : - earthquake tempest.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 6 distinct written forms G4578 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σεισμὸς seismòs | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 8:24 | 8 |
| σεισμοὶ seismoì | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Matthew 24:7 | 2 |
| σεισμοί seismoí | Noun, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Luke 21:11 | 1 |
| σεισμός seismós | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Revelation 8:5 | 1 |
| σεισμὸν seismòn | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 27:54 | 1 |
| σεισμῷ seismō̂ | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Revelation 11:13 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4578, 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 σεισμος appears 13 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 13 verses in 7 books.
- 13
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 13
- 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
- Job 41:21 σεισμός
- Isaiah 15:5 σεισμός
- Jeremiah 10:22 σεισμός
- Ezekiel 3:12 σεισμός
- Amos 1:1 σεισμός
- Nahum 3:2 σεισμός
- Zechariah 14:5 σεισμός
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4578) 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.
- Job 41:21 σεισμός His breath kindles coals. A flame goes forth from his mouth.
- Isaiah 15:5 σεισμός My heart cries out for Moab; her nobles [flee] to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah: for by the ascent of Luhith with weeping they go up; for in the way of Horonaim they raise up a cry of destruction.
- Isaiah 29:6 σεισμός She shall be visited of Yahweh of Hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
- Jeremiah 10:22 σεισμός The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling-place of jackals.
- Jeremiah 23:19 σεισμός Behold, the tempest of Yahweh, [even his] wrath, is gone forth, yes, a whirling tempest: it shall burst on the head of the wicked.
- Jeremiah 29:3 σεισμός by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), saying,
- Ezekiel 3:12 σεισμός Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the voice of a great rushing, [saying], Blessed be the glory of Yahweh from his place.
- Ezekiel 3:13 σεισμός [I heard] the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of a great rushing.
- Ezekiel 37:7 σεισμός So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and, behold, an earthquake; and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
- Ezekiel 38:19 σεισμός For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel;
- Amos 1:1 σεισμός The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.
- Nahum 3:2 σεισμός The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,
- Zechariah 14:5 σεισμός You shall flee by the valley of my mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azel; yes, you shall flee, just like you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Yahweh my God will come, and all the holy ones with you.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4578) 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.
