σείω
to shake
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
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G4579 appears in the Book of Matthew — 3 distinct verses. 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
- Matthew 21:10 ἐσείσθη aor pass ind 3sg When he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?"
- Matthew 27:51 ἐσείσθη aor pass ind 3sg Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.
- Matthew 28:4 ἐσείσθησαν aor pass ind 3pl For fear of him, the guards shook, and became like dead men.
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.
σειω (seíō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to shake.” It occurs a mere 5 verses across Scripture. Matthew dominates its distribution — 3 of 5 verses. It first appears in Matthew 21:10. Sharing its root, it stands alongside σαινω and σεισμος. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4579 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 →
- 5
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 5 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,648
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,648 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 5 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Matthew 3 verses 60%
- Hebrews 1 verse 20%
- Revelation 1 verse 20%
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 5 distinct verses.
- Gospels 3 verses · 60%
- Johannine 1 verse · 20%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 20%
- Revelation 1 verse · 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: Did quake 1×, Did shake 1×, Shake 1×
- American Standard Version: Did quake 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Quaked 1×, Shaken 1×, Trembled 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Was shaken 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4579 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4579 across 5 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 G4579 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4579 across 6 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.
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 shake, agitate, cause to tremble
Word origin
Origin: apparently a primary verb
Apparently a primary verb; to rock ( vibrate properly sideways or to and fro) that is (generally) to agitate (in any direction; cause to tremble ); figuratively to throw into a tremor (of fear or concern): - move quake shake.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 4 distinct written forms G4579 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἐσείσθη eseísthē | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 21:10 | 2 |
| σείσω seísō | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Hebrews 12:26 | 1 |
| σειομένη seioménē | Verb, Present, Passive, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Feminine | Revelation 6:13 | 1 |
| ἐσείσθησαν eseísthēsan | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Matthew 28:4 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4579, 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 σειω appears 33 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 33 verses in 14 books.
- 33
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 33
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 14 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 14 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Judges 5:4 σείω
- 2 Samuel 22:8 σείω
- Job 9:6 σείω
- Psalms 67:9 σείω
- Proverbs 30:21 σείω
- Isaiah 10:13 σείω
- Jeremiah 8:16 σείω
- Ezekiel 26:10 σείω
- Daniel 2:40 σείω
- Joel 2:10 σείω
- Amos 1:14 σείω
- Nahum 1:5 σείω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4579) 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.
- Judges 5:4 σείω Yahweh, when you went forth out of Seir, When you marched out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, the sky also dropped, Yes, the clouds dropped water.
- 2 Samuel 22:8 σείω Then the earth shook and trembled, The foundations of heaven quaked Were shaken, because he was angry.
- Job 9:6 σείω Who shakes the earth out of its place; The pillars of it tremble;
- Job 9:28 σείω I am afraid of all my sorrows, I know that you will not hold me innocent.
- Psalms 67:9 σείω
- Proverbs 30:21 σείω "For three things the earth tremble, And under four, it can't bear up:
- Isaiah 10:13 σείω For he has said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I have understanding: and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and like a valiant man I have brought down those who sit [on thrones]:
- Isaiah 13:13 σείω Therefore I will make the heavens to tremble, and the earth shall be shaken out of its place, in the wrath of Yahweh of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
- Isaiah 14:16 σείω Those who see you shall gaze at you, they shall consider you, [saying], "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;
- Isaiah 17:4 σείω It shall happen in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean.
- Isaiah 19:1 σείω The burden of Egypt. Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
- Isaiah 24:18 σείω It shall happen, that he who flees from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit; and he who comes up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for the windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.
- Isaiah 24:20 σείω The earth shall stagger like a drunken man, and shall sway back and forth like a hammock; and the disobedience of it shall be heavy on it, and it shall fall, and not rise again.
- Isaiah 28:7 σείω Even these reel with wine, and stagger with strong drink; the priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they stagger with strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
- Isaiah 33:20 σείω Look on Zion, the city of our solemnities: your eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tent that shall not be removed, the stakes of it shall never be plucked up, neither shall any of the cords of it be broken.
- Jeremiah 8:16 σείω The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembles; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those who dwell therein.
- Jeremiah 27:46 σείω
- Jeremiah 28:29 σείω
- Jeremiah 30:15 σείω Why cry you for your hurt? your pain is incurable: for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased, I have done these things to you.
- Ezekiel 26:10 σείω By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover you: your walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wagons, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into your gates, as men enter into a city in which is made a breach.
- Ezekiel 26:15 σείω Thus says the Lord Yahweh to Tyre: shall not the isles shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made in the midst of you?
- Ezekiel 31:16 σείω I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.
- Ezekiel 38:20 σείω so that the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the field, and all creeping things who creep on the earth, and all the men who are on the surface of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.
- Daniel 2:40 σείω The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron, because iron breaks in pieces and subdues all things; and as iron that crushes all these, shall it break in pieces and crush.
- Joel 2:10 σείω The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, And the stars withdraw their shining.
- Joel 4:16 σείω
- Amos 1:14 σείω But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, And it will devour its palaces, With shouting in the day of battle, With a tempest in the day of the whirlwind;
- Amos 9:1 σείω I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, "Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape.
- Nahum 1:5 σείω The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.
- Habakkuk 2:16 σείω You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh's right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory.
- Habakkuk 3:14 σείω You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, Gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret.
- Haggai 2:6 σείω For this is what Yahweh of Hosts says: 'Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land;
- Haggai 2:21 σείω "Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, 'I will shake the heavens and the earth.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4579) 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.
