σπουδάζω
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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular 4 times (36%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural 2 times (18%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 1st person, Plural 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular 1 time (9%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine 1 time (9%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 11 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G4704 appears — 11 distinct verses across 7 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.
Galatians 1 verse
Ephesians 1 verse
1 Thessalonians 1 verse
2 Timothy 3 verses
- 2 Timothy 2:15 σπούδασον aor act impv 2sg Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.
- 2 Timothy 4:9 Σπούδασον aor act impv 2sg Be diligent to come to me soon,
- 2 Timothy 4:21 σπούδασον aor act impv 2sg Be diligent to come before winter. Eubulus salutes you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers.
Titus 1 verse
Hebrews 1 verse
2 Peter 3 verses
- 2 Peter 1:10 σπουδάσατε aor act impv 2pl Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.
- 2 Peter 1:15 σπουδάσω fut act ind 1sg Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure.
- 2 Peter 3:14 σπουδάσατε aor act impv 2pl Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without blemish and blameless in his sight.
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, σπουδαζω (spoudázō) means “to hasten.” It first appears in Galatians 2:10. It turns up in 11 verses across 7 books, an uncommon footprint. The word gravitates to 2 Timothy (27%), then 2 Peter and Galatians. Ranging over 2 senses, it is not a single-sense word. Dig into 11-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4704 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 →
- 11
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 11 distinct verses.
- 7 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 7 of 27 New Testament books.
- #978
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 978 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 11 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 11 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 64%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 3 verses · 27%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 9%
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: Be diligent 2×, Do thy diligence 2×
- American Standard Version: Give diligence 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Make every effort 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Strive 3×, Eager 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4704 across 12 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 G4704 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 7 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 G4704 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 6 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 G4704 across 14 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 9 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 hasten, make haste
- to exert one's self, endeavour, give diligence
Word origin
Derived from σπουδη (spoudḗ) (G4710) — haste.
From G4710 ; to use speed that is to make effort be prompt or earnest : - do (give) diligence be diligent (forward) endeavour labour study.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 8 distinct written forms G4704 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σπούδασον spoúdason | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | 2 Timothy 2:15 | 3 |
| σπουδάσατε spoudásate | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Plural | 2 Peter 1:10 | 2 |
| Σπουδάσωμεν Spoudásōmen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 1st person, Plural | Hebrews 4:11 | 1 |
| Σπούδασον Spoúdason | Verb, Aorist, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | 2 Timothy 4:9 | 1 |
| σπουδάζοντες spoudázontes | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Ephesians 4:3 | 1 |
| σπουδάσω spoudásō | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | 2 Peter 1:15 | 1 |
| ἐσπουδάσαμεν espoudásamen | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Plural | 1 Thessalonians 2:17 | 1 |
| ἐσπούδασα espoúdasa | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Galatians 2:10 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4704, 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 σπουδαζω appears 8 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 8 verses in 3 books.
- 8
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 8
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 3 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 3 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Job 4:5 σπουδάζω
- Ecclesiastes 8:2 σπουδάζω
- Isaiah 21:3 σπουδάζω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4704) 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 4:5 σπουδάζω But now it is come to you, and you faint; It touches you, and you are troubled.
- Job 21:6 σπουδάζω When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
- Job 22:10 σπουδάζω Therefore snares are round about you. Sudden fear troubles you,
- Job 23:15 σπουδάζω Therefore I am terrified at his presence. When I consider, I am afraid of him.
- Job 23:16 σπουδάζω For God has made my heart faint. The Almighty has terrified me.
- Job 31:5 σπουδάζω "If I have walked with falsehood, And my foot has hurried to deceit
- Ecclesiastes 8:2 σπουδάζω I say, "Keep the king's command!" because of the oath to God.
- Isaiah 21:3 σπουδάζω Therefore are my loins filled with anguish; pangs have taken hold on me, as the pangs of a woman in travail: I am pained so that I can't hear; I am dismayed so that I can't see.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4704) 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.
