συμβουλεύω
to take counsel
‘to take counsel’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
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).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Middle
- The subject acts on or for itself, or with special interest in 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
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G4823 appears in the Book of Revelation — 1 distinct verse. 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.
Revelation
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, συμβουλευω (symbouleúō) means “to take counsel.” A scarce word — 4 verses in all of the Greek New Testament. Its uses concentrate in Matthew (25% of all occurrences). Scripture first uses it in Matthew 26:4. Catalogued under 2 senses, its meaning is not single-sense. Dig into 4-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4823 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 →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #1,877
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 1,877 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 4 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 4 distinct verses.
- Gospels 2 verses · 50%
- Johannine 2 verses · 50%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 25%
- Revelation 1 verse · 25%
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: Consulted 1×, Forth they took counsel together 1×, Gave counsel 1×
- American Standard Version: They took counsel 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Conspired 1×, Had advised 1×, I counsel 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Having advised 1×, I advise 1×, They took counsel together 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4823 across 5 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4823 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 G4823 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4823 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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 give counsel
- to take counsel with others, take counsel together, to consult, deliberate
Word origin
Derived from συν (sýn) (G4862) — with.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G4823 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| συνεβουλεύσαντο synebouleúsanto | Verb, Aorist, Middle, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Matthew 26:4 | 2 |
| συμβουλεύσας symbouleúsas | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | John 18:14 | 1 |
| συμβουλεύω symbouleúō | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 1st person, Singular | Revelation 3:18 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4823, 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
- κοινος koinós G2839 common
- συγγενης syngenḗs G4773 related by blood
- συγγνωμη syngnṓmē G4774 pardon
- συγκαθημαι synkáthēmai G4775 to sit together
- συγκαθιζω synkathízō G4776 to sit together
- συγκακοπαθεω synkakopathéō G4777 to suffer together
- συγκακουχεω synkakouchéō G4778 to be ill-treated together
- συγκαλεω synkaléō G4779 to call together
- συγκαλυπτω synkalýptō G4780 to cover completely
- συγκαμπτω synkámptō G4781 to bend together
- συγκαταβαινω synkatabaínō G4782 to go down with
- συγκατατιθεμαι synkatatíthemai G4784 to deposit together
- συγκαταψηφιζω synkatapsēphízō G4785 to vote against
- συγκεραννυμι synkeránnymi G4786 to mix together
- συγκλειω synkleíō G4788 to shut up
- συγκληρονομος synklēronómos G4789 joint heir
- συγκοινωνεω synkoinōnéō G4790 to share together
- συγκοινωνος synkoinōnós G4791 joint partner
- συγκομιζω synkomízō G4792 to collect together
- συγκρινω synkrínō G4793 to join together
- συγκυπτω synkýptō G4794 to bend together
- συγκυρια synkyría G4795 by chance
- συγχαιρω synchaírō G4796 to rejoice with
- συγχεω synchéō G4797 to disturb
+125 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 151 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word συμβουλευω appears 22 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 17 verses in 9 books.
- 22
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 17
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 9 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 9 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 18:19 συνβουλεύω
- Numbers 24:14 συνβουλεύω
- Joshua 15:18 συνβουλεύω
- 2 Samuel 17:11 συνβουλεύω
- 1 Kings 1:12 συνβουλεύω
- 2 Chronicles 10:8 συνβουλεύω
- Job 26:3 συνβουλεύω
- Isaiah 33:18 συνβουλεύω
- Jeremiah 43:16 συνβουλεύω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4823) 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.
- Exodus 18:19 συνβουλεύω Listen now to my voice. I will give you counsel, and God be with you. You represent the people before God, and bring the causes to God.
- Numbers 24:14 συνβουλεύω Now, behold, I go to my people: come, [and] I will advertise you what this people shall do to your people in the latter days.
- Joshua 15:18 συνβουλεύω It happened, when she came [to him], that she moved him to ask of her father a field: and she alighted from off her donkey; and Caleb said, What would you?
- 2 Samuel 17:11 συνβουλεύω But I counsel that all Israel be gathered together to you, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude; and that you go to battle in your own person.
- 2 Samuel 17:15 συνβουλεύω Then said Hushai to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, Thus and thus did Ahithophel counsel Absalom and the elders of Israel; and thus and thus have I counseled.
- 1 Kings 1:12 συνβουλεύω Now therefore come, please let me give you counsel, that you may save your own life, and the life of your son Solomon.
- 1 Kings 12:8 συνβουλεύω But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
- 1 Kings 12:9 συνβουλεύω He said to them, What counsel do you give, that we may return answer to this people, who have spoken to me, saying, Make the yoke that your father did put on us lighter?
- 1 Kings 12:13 συνβουλεύω The king answered the people roughly, and forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him,
- 1 Kings 12:24 συνβουλεύω Thus says Yahweh, You shall not go up, nor fight against your brothers the children of Israel: return every man to his house; for this thing is of me. So they listened to the word of Yahweh, and returned and went their way, according to the word of Yahweh.
- 2 Chronicles 10:8 συνβουλεύω But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him, who stood before him.
- Job 26:3 συνβουλεύω How have you counseled him who has no wisdom, And plentifully declared sound knowledge!
- Isaiah 33:18 συνβουλεύω Your heart shall muse on the terror: Where is he who counted, where is he who weighed [the tribute]? where is he who counted the towers?
- Isaiah 33:19 συνβουλεύω You shall not see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can not comprehend, of a strange language that you can not understand.
- Isaiah 40:14 συνβουλεύω With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him in the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and shown to him the way of understanding?
- Jeremiah 43:16 συνβουλεύω
- Jeremiah 45:15 συνβουλεύω
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4823) 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.