συμφέρω
to bring together
‘to bring together’ 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.
- Adjective
- A word that describes or qualifies a noun.
Tense
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Aorist
- Action viewed as a simple whole, without regard to duration — often past (perfective aspect).
Voice
- 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
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G4851 appears in the Book of John — 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.
John
- John 11:50 συμφέρει pres act ind 3sg nor do you consider that it is advantageous for us that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish."
- John 16:7 συμφέρει pres act ind 3sg Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don't go away, the Counselor won't come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
- John 18:14 συμφέρει pres act ind 3sg Now it was Caiaphas who advised the Jews that it was expedient that one man should perish for the people.
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.
συμφερω — transliterated symphérō — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to bring together.” It first appears in Matthew 5:29. With 17 verses in 6 books, it is an uncommon word in the Greek New Testament. Its uses concentrate in 1 Corinthians (29% of all occurrences). Its lexical range runs to 2 senses. See the sense tree, 17-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4851 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 →
- 17
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 17 distinct verses.
- 6 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 6 of 27 New Testament books.
- #697
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 697 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 17 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 1 Corinthians 5 verses 29%
- Matthew 4 verses 24%
- John 3 verses 18%
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 17 distinct verses.
- Gospels 7 verses · 41%
- Pauline corpus 7 verses · 41%
- Johannine 3 verses · 18%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 2 verses · 12%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 6%
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: Expedient 3×, Is expedient 3×, Profit 3×
- American Standard Version: Expedient 4×, Is expedient 3×, Is profitable 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Is better 4×, Good 3×, Is beneficial 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Is better 6×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4851 across 22 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G4851 across 23 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.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G4851 across 17 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4851 across 16 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 10 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 bear or bring together
- to bear together or at the same time
Word origin
Derived from συν (sýn) (G4862) — with.
From G4862 and G5342 (including its alternate); to bear together ( contribute ) that is (literally) to collect or (figuratively) to conduce ; especially (neuter participle as noun) advantage : - be better for bring together be expedient (for) be good (be) profit (-able for).
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G4851 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| συμφέρει symphérei | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 5:29 | 10 |
| συμφέρον symphéron | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Accusative, Singular, Neuter | 1 Corinthians 12:7 | 3 |
| σύμφορον sýmphoron | Adjective, Accusative, Singular, Neuter | 1 Corinthians 7:35 | 2 |
| συμφερόντων sympheróntōn | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Neuter | Acts 20:20 | 1 |
| συνενέγκαντες synenénkantes | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Nominative, Plural, Masculine | Acts 19:19 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4851, 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 συμφερω appears 5 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 5 verses in 4 books.
- 5
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 5
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 4 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 4 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Deuteronomy 23:7 συνφέρω
- Esther 3:8 συνφέρω
- Proverbs 19:10 συνφέρω
- Jeremiah 33:14 συνφέρω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4851) 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.
- Deuteronomy 23:7 συνφέρω You shall not abhor an Edomite; for he is your brother: you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you lived as a foreigner in his land.
- Esther 3:8 συνφέρω Haman said to king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; and their laws are diverse from [those of] every people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to allow them.
- Proverbs 19:10 συνφέρω Delicate living is not appropriate for a fool, Much less for a servant to have rule over princes.
- Proverbs 31:19 συνφέρω She lays her hands to the distaff, And her hands hold the spindle.
- Jeremiah 33:14 συνφέρω Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will perform that good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and concerning the house of Judah.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4851) 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.
