σπεύδω
to hasten
‘to hasten’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-tense verb in the Greek New Testament →
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).
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G4692 appears in the Book of Acts — 2 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.
Acts
- Acts 20:16 ἔσπευδεν impf act ind 3sg For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
- Acts 22:18 σπεῦσον aor act impv 2sg and saw him saying to me, 'Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not receive testimony concerning me from you.'
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.
The Greek verb σπευδω centers on the idea of “to hasten.” Luke dominates its distribution — 3 of 6 verses. The Greek New Testament uses it across 6 verses — uncommon. Its earliest occurrence is Luke 2:16. Thayer's distinguishes 2 senses for it. 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 G4692 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 →
- 6
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 6 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,476
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,476 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 6 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 6 distinct verses.
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 5 verses · 83%
- Gospels 3 verses · 50%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 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: Make haste 2×
- American Standard Version: Make haste 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Hurry 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Hastening 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4692 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4692 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4692 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4692 across 6 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.
- to haste, make haste
- to desire earnestly
Word origin
Derived from πους (poús) (G4228) — foot.
Probably strengthened from G4228 ; to speed (study) that is urge on (diligently or earnestly); by implication to await eagerly : - (make with) haste unto.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G4692 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σπεύσας speúsas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 19:5 | 2 |
| σπεύδοντας speúdontas | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Plural, Masculine | 2 Peter 3:12 | 1 |
| σπεύσαντες speúsantes | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Luke 2:16 | 1 |
| σπεῦσον speûson | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | Acts 22:18 | 1 |
| ἔσπευδεν éspeuden | Verb, Imperfect, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Acts 20:16 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4692, 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
- πεδη pédē G3976 shackle
- πεδινος pedinós G3977 level
- πεζη pezēi G3979 on foot
- ποδηρης podḗrēs G4158 ankle-length
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word σπευδω appears 50 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 48 verses in 18 books.
- 50
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 48
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 18 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 18 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 18:6 σπεύδω
- Exodus 15:15 σπεύδω
- Joshua 4:10 σπεύδω
- Judges 5:22 σπεύδω
- 1 Samuel 4:14 σπεύδω
- 2 Samuel 4:4 σπεύδω
- 1 Kings 18:7 σπεύδω
- 2 Kings 9:13 σπεύδω
- 2 Chronicles 10:18 σπεύδω
- Esther 2:9 σπεύδω
- Proverbs 7:23 σπεύδω
- Ecclesiastes 5:1 σπεύδω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4692) 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.
- Genesis 18:6 σπεύδω Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah, and said, "Quickly make ready three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes."
- Genesis 19:22 σπεύδω Hurry, escape there, for I can't do anything until you get there." Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
- Genesis 24:18 σπεύδω She said, "Drink, my lord." She hurried, and let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him drink.
- Genesis 24:20 σπεύδω She hurried, and emptied her pitcher into the trough, and ran again to the well to draw, and drew for all his camels.
- Genesis 24:46 σπεύδω She hurried and let down her pitcher from her shoulder, and said, 'Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink.' So I drank, and she made the camels drink also.
- Genesis 44:11 σπεύδω Then they hurried, and took down every man his sack to the ground, and opened every man his sack.
- Genesis 45:9 σπεύδω Hurry, and go up to my father, and tell him, 'This is what your son Joseph says, "God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me. Don't wait.
- Exodus 15:15 σπεύδω Then the chiefs of Edom were dismayed. Trembling takes hold of the mighty men of Moab. All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away.
- Exodus 34:8 σπεύδω Moses hurried and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshiped.
- Joshua 4:10 σπεύδω For the priests who bore the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan, until everything was finished that Yahweh commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hurried and passed over.
- Joshua 8:14 σπεύδω It happened, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hurried and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at the time appointed, before the Arabah; but he didn't know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.
- Joshua 8:19 σπεύδω The ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand, and entered into the city, and took it; and they hurried and set the city on fire.
- Judges 5:22 σπεύδω Then did the horse hoofs stamp By reason of the prancings, the prancings of their strong ones.
- Judges 20:41 σπεύδω The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that evil had come on them.
- 1 Samuel 4:14 σπεύδω When Eli heard the noise of the crying, he said, What means the noise of this tumult? The man hurried, and came and told Eli.
- 1 Samuel 4:16 σπεύδω The man said to Eli, I am he who came out of the army, and I fled today out of the army. He said, How went the matter, my son?
- 1 Samuel 20:38 σπεύδω Jonathan cried after the boy, Go fast! Hurry! Don't delay! Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows, and came to his master.
- 1 Samuel 23:27 σπεύδω But there came a messenger to Saul, saying, Haste you, and come; for the Philistines have made a raid on the land.
- 1 Samuel 25:18 σπεύδω Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched grain, and one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on donkeys.
- 1 Samuel 25:23 σπεύδω When Abigail saw David, she hurried, and alighted from her donkey, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground.
- 1 Samuel 25:34 σπεύδω For in very deed, as Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, who has withheld me from hurting you, except you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there wouldn't have been left to Nabal by the morning light so much as one man-child.
- 1 Samuel 28:20 σπεύδω Then Saul fell immediately his full length on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.
- 1 Samuel 28:21 σπεύδω The woman came to Saul, and saw that he was sore troubled, and said to him, Behold, your handmaid has listened to your voice, and I have put my life in my hand, and have listened to your words which you spoke to me.
- 1 Samuel 28:24 σπεύδω The woman had a fattened calf in the house; and she hurried, and killed it; and she took flour, and kneaded it, and did bake unleavened bread of it:
- 2 Samuel 4:4 σπεύδω Now Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son who was lame of his feet. He was five years old when the news came of Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.
- 2 Samuel 17:16 σπεύδω Now therefore send quickly, and tell David, saying, Don't lodge this night at the fords of the wilderness, but by all means pass over; lest the king be swallowed up, and all the people who are with him.
- 1 Kings 18:7 σπεύδω As Obadiah was in the way, behold, Elijah met him: and he knew him, and fell on his face, and said, Is it you, my lord Elijah?
- 1 Kings 21:33 σπεύδω
- 1 Kings 21:41 σπεύδω
- 2 Kings 9:13 σπεύδω Then they hurried, and took every man his garment, and put it under him on the top of the stairs, and blew the trumpet, saying, Jehu is king.
- 2 Chronicles 10:18 σπεύδω Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was over the men subject to forced labor; and the children of Israel stoned him to death with stones. King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
- 2 Chronicles 24:5 σπεύδω He gathered together the priests and the Levites, and said to them, Go out to the cities of Judah, and gather of all Israel money to repair the house of your God from year to year; and see that you hasten the matter. However the Levites didn't hurry.
- 2 Chronicles 26:20 σπεύδω Azariah the chief priest, and all the priests, looked on him, and, behold, he was leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out quickly from there; yes, himself hurried also to go out, because Yahweh had struck him.
- Esther 2:9 σπεύδω The maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him; and he speedily gave her things for her purification, with her portions, and the seven maidens who were meet to be given her out of the king's house: and he removed her and her maidens to the best place of the house of the women.
- Esther 3:15 σπεύδω The posts went forth in haste by the king's commandment, and the decree was given out in Shushan the palace. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Shushan was perplexed.
- Esther 8:14 σπεύδω So the posts who rode on swift steeds that were used in the king's service went out, being hurried and pressed on by the king's commandment; and the decree was given out in Shushan the palace.
- Proverbs 7:23 σπεύδω Until an arrow strikes through his liver, As a bird hurries to the snare, And doesn't know that it will cost his life.
- Proverbs 28:22 σπεύδω A stingy man hurries after riches, And doesn't know that poverty waits for him.
- Ecclesiastes 5:1 σπεύδω Guard your steps when you go to God's house; for to draw near to listen is better than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they don't know that they do evil.
- Ecclesiastes 7:9 σπεύδω Don't be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.
- Isaiah 16:5 σπεύδω A throne shall be established in loving kindness; and one shall sit thereon in truth, in the tent of David, judging, and seeking justice, and swift to do righteousness.
- Jeremiah 4:6 σπεύδω Set up a standard toward Zion: flee for safety, don't stay; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.
- Jeremiah 38:20 σπεύδω But Jeremiah said, They shall not deliver you. Obey, I beg you, the voice of Yahweh, in that which I speak to you: so it shall be well with you, and your soul shall live.
- Ezekiel 30:9 σπεύδω In that day shall messengers go forth from before me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid; and there shall be anguish on them, as in the day of Egypt; for, behold, it comes.
- Daniel 3:91 σπεύδω
- Daniel 5:6 σπεύδω Then the king's face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his loins were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.
- Micah 4:1 σπεύδω But in the latter days, It will happen that the mountain of Yahweh's temple will be established on the top of the mountains, And it will be exalted above the hills; And peoples will stream to it.
- Nahum 2:6 σπεύδω The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4692) 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.
