σπήλαιον
cave
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Accusative-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
- 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).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
1 distinct verse where G4693 appears in the Nominative case, across 1 book. Filtered view — show all forms. 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.
John 1 verse
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.
σπηλαιον (spḗlaion) is a Greek noun most often rendered “cave.” It first appears in Matthew 21:13. It turns up in 6 verses across 6 books, an uncommon footprint. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4693 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.
- 6 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 6 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.
- Gospels 4 verses · 67%
- Johannine 2 verses · 33%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 17%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 17%
- Revelation 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: Den 3×, Dens 2×
- American Standard Version: Den 3×, Caves 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Den 3×, Caves 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: A 3×, Den 3×, Caves 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4693 across 6 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 G4693 across 6 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 G4693 across 6 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 G4693 across 9 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 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.
- a cave, den
Word origin
Origin: from a presumed derivative of speos (a grotto)
Neuter of a presumed derivation of σπέος speos (a grotto ); a cavern ; by implication a hiding place or resort : - cave den.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G4693 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σπήλαιον spḗlaion | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 21:13 | 4 |
| σπήλαια spḗlaia | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Revelation 6:15 | 1 |
| σπηλαίοις spēlaíois | Noun, Dative, Plural, Neuter | Hebrews 11:38 | 1 |
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word σπηλαιον appears 50 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 43 verses in 12 books.
- 50
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 43
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 19:30 σπήλαιον
- Joshua 10:16 σπήλαιον
- Judges 6:2 σπήλαιον
- 1 Samuel 13:6 σπήλαιον
- 2 Samuel 23:13 σπήλαιον
- 1 Kings 18:4 σπήλαιον
- 1 Chronicles 11:15 σπήλαιον
- Psalms 56:1 σπήλαιον
- Isaiah 2:19 σπήλαιον
- Jeremiah 4:29 σπήλαιον
- Ezekiel 33:27 σπήλαιον
- Habakkuk 2:15 σπήλαιον
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4693) 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 19:30 σπήλαιον Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters.
- Genesis 23:9 σπήλαιον that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he has, which is in the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in the midst of you for a possession of a burying-place."
- Genesis 23:11 σπήλαιον "No, my lord, hear me. I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the presence of the children of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead."
- Genesis 23:17 σπήλαιον So the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the border of it round about, were made sure
- Genesis 23:19 σπήλαιον After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan.
- Genesis 23:20 σπήλαιον The field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure to Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the children of Heth.
- Genesis 25:9 σπήλαιον Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron, the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre,
- Genesis 25:10 σπήλαιον the field which Abraham purchased of the children of Heth. There was Abraham buried, with Sarah his wife.
- Genesis 49:29 σπήλαιον He charged them, and said to them, "I am to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite,
- Genesis 49:30 σπήλαιον in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a burial place.
- Genesis 49:32 σπήλαιον the field and the cave that is therein, which was purchased from the children of Heth."
- Genesis 50:13 σπήλαιον for his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field, for a possession of a burying-place, from Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre.
- Joshua 10:16 σπήλαιον These five kings fled, and hid themselves in the cave at Makkedah.
- Joshua 10:17 σπήλαιον It was told Joshua, saying, The five kings are found, hidden in the cave at Makkedah.
- Joshua 10:18 σπήλαιον Joshua said, Roll great stones to the mouth of the cave, and set men by it to keep them:
- Joshua 10:22 σπήλαιον Then said Joshua, Open the mouth of the cave, and bring forth those five kings to me out of the cave.
- Joshua 10:23 σπήλαιον They did so, and brought forth those five kings to him out of the cave, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon.
- Joshua 10:27 σπήλαιον It happened at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua commanded, and they took them down off the trees, and cast them into the cave in which they had hidden themselves, and laid great stones on the mouth of the cave, to this very day.
- Judges 6:2 σπήλαιον The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; and because of Midian the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and the caves, and the strongholds.
- 1 Samuel 13:6 σπήλαιον When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait (for the people were distressed), then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in coverts, and in pits.
- 1 Samuel 22:1 σπήλαιον David therefore departed there, and escaped to the cave of Adullam: and when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him.
- 1 Samuel 24:4 σπήλαιον The men of David said to him, Behold, the day of which Yahweh said to you, Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you. Then David arose, and cut off the skirt of Saul's robe secretly.
- 1 Samuel 24:9 σπήλαιον David said to Saul, Why listen you to men's words, saying, Behold, David seeks your hurt?
- 1 Samuel 24:11 σπήλαιον Moreover, my father, behold, yes, see the skirt of your robe in my hand; for in that I cut off the skirt of your robe, and didn't kill you, know you and see that there is neither evil nor disobedience in my hand, and I have not sinned against you, though you hunt after my life to take it.
- 2 Samuel 23:13 σπήλαιον Three of the thirty chief men went down, and came to David in the harvest time to the cave of Adullam; and the troop of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.
- 1 Kings 18:4 σπήλαιον for it was so, when Jezebel cut off the prophets of Yahweh, that Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)
- 1 Kings 18:13 σπήλαιον Wasn't it told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of Yahweh, how I hid one hundred men of Yahweh's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water?
- 1 Kings 19:9 σπήλαιον He came there to a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of Yahweh came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
- 1 Kings 19:13 σπήλαιον It was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entrance of the cave. Behold, there came a voice to him, and said, What are you doing here, Elijah?
- 1 Chronicles 11:15 σπήλαιον Three of the thirty chief men went down to the rock to David, into the cave of Adullam; and the host of the Philistines were encamped in the valley of Rephaim.
- Psalms 56:1 σπήλαιον Be merciful to me, God, for man wants to swallow me up. All day long, he attacks and oppresses me.
- Psalms 141:1 σπήλαιον Yahweh, I have called on you. Come to me quickly! Listen to my voice when I call to you.
- Isaiah 2:19 σπήλαιον Men shall go into the caves of the rocks, And into the holes of the earth, From before the terror of Yahweh, And from the glory of his majesty, When he arises to shake the earth mightily.
- Isaiah 7:19 σπήλαιον They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn-hedges, and on all pastures.
- Isaiah 32:14 σπήλαιον For the palace shall be forsaken; the populous city shall be deserted; the hill and the watch-tower shall be for dens forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks;
- Isaiah 33:16 σπήλαιον He shall dwell on high; his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks; his bread shall be given [him]; his waters shall be sure.
- Isaiah 65:4 σπήλαιον who sit among the graves, and lodge in the secret places; who eat pig's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;
- Jeremiah 4:29 σπήλαιον Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers; they go into the thickets, and climb up on the rocks: every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.
- Jeremiah 7:11 σπήλαιον Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it, says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 12:9 σπήλαιον Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about? go you, assemble all the animals of the field, bring them to devour.
- Jeremiah 27:26 σπήλαιον
- Ezekiel 33:27 σπήλαιον Thus shall you tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: As I live, surely those who are in the waste places shall fall by the sword; and him who is in the open field will I give to the animals to be devoured; and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.
- Habakkuk 2:15 σπήλαιον "Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies!
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4693) 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.
