σωτήρ
savior
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Genitive-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
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
2 verses where G4990 appears in the Genitive case in the Book of 1 Timothy. 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.
1 Timothy
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, σωτηρ (sōtḗr) means “savior.” Where the King James Version says “saviour,” newer translations reach for “savior” (Berean Standard Bible); the renderings breakdown has the detail. It appears 24 verses across 11 books of the Greek New Testament, among its uncommon vocabulary. The word gravitates to Titus (25%), then 2 Peter and 1 Timothy. First canonically at Luke 1:47, it enters the text early. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G4990 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 →
- 24
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 24 distinct verses.
- 11 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 11 of 27 New Testament books.
- #548
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 548 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 24 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 24 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 12 verses · 50%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 7 verses · 29%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 4 verses · 17%
- Gospels 3 verses · 13%
- Johannine 2 verses · 8%
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: Saviour 23×
- American Standard Version: Saviour 23×
- Berean Standard Bible: Savior 24×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Savior 23×, Of 3×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G4990 across 24 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 G4990 across 24 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 G4990 across 24 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G4990 across 27 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.
- saviour, deliverer, preserver
Word origin
Derived from σωζω (sṓzō) (G4982) — to save.
From G4982 ; a deliverer that is God or christ : - saviour.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 5 distinct written forms G4990 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| σωτῆρος sōtē̂ros | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Masculine | 1 Timothy 1:1 | 14 |
| σωτὴρ sōtḕr | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 2:11 | 4 |
| σωτῆρα sōtē̂ra | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Acts 5:31 | 4 |
| σωτῆρί sōtē̂rí | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Luke 1:47 | 1 |
| σωτῆρι sōtē̂ri | Noun, Dative, Singular, Masculine | Jude 1:25 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G4990, 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
Derived from this word
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 7 — not the complete family. 2 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word σωτηρ appears 22 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 22 verses in 8 books.
- 22
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 22
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 8 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 8 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Deuteronomy 32:15 σωτήρ
- Judges 3:9 σωτήρ
- 1 Samuel 10:19 σωτήρ
- Ezra 19:27 σωτήρ
- Psalms 23:5 σωτήρ
- Isaiah 12:2 σωτήρ
- Micah 7:7 σωτήρ
- Habakkuk 3:18 σωτήρ
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G4990) 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 32:15 σωτήρ But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: You have grown fat, you are grown thick, you are become sleek; Then he forsook God who made him, Lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
- Judges 3:9 σωτήρ When the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised up a savior to the children of Israel, who saved them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother.
- Judges 3:15 σωτήρ But when the children of Israel cried to Yahweh, Yahweh raised them up a savior, Ehud the son of Gera, the Benjamite, a man left-handed. The children of Israel sent tribute by him to Eglon the king of Moab.
- Judges 12:3 σωτήρ When I saw that you didn't save me, I put my life in my hand, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and Yahweh delivered them into my hand: why then are you come up to me this day, to fight against me?
- 1 Samuel 10:19 σωτήρ but you have this day rejected your God, who himself saves you out of all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to him, [No], but set a king over us. Now therefore present yourselves before Yahweh by your tribes, and by your thousands.
- Ezra 19:27 σωτήρ
- Psalms 23:5 σωτήρ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.
- Psalms 24:5 σωτήρ He shall receive a blessing from Yahweh, Righteousness from the God of his salvation.
- Psalms 26:1 σωτήρ Judge me, Yahweh, for I have walked in my integrity. I have trusted also in Yahweh without wavering.
- Psalms 26:9 σωτήρ Don't gather my soul with sinners, Nor my life with bloodthirsty men;
- Psalms 61:3 σωτήρ For you have been a refuge for me, A strong tower from the enemy.
- Psalms 61:7 σωτήρ He shall be enthroned in God's presence forever. Appoint your loving kindness and truth, that they may preserve him.
- Psalms 64:6 σωτήρ They plot injustice, saying, "We have made a perfect plan!" Surely man's mind and heart are cunning.
- Psalms 78:9 σωτήρ The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of battle.
- Psalms 94:1 σωτήρ Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs, You God to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth.
- Isaiah 12:2 σωτήρ Behold, God is my salvation. I will trust, and will not be afraid; for Yah, Yahweh, is my strength and song; and he has become my salvation."
- Isaiah 17:10 σωτήρ For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength; therefore you plant pleasant plants, and set it with strange slips.
- Isaiah 45:15 σωτήρ Most assuredly you are a God who hid yourself, God of Israel, the Savior.'
- Isaiah 45:21 σωτήρ Declare you, and bring [it] forth; yes, let them take counsel together: who has shown this from ancient time? who has declared it of old? Haven't I, Yahweh? and there is no God else besides me, a just God and a Savior; there is no one besides me.
- Isaiah 62:11 σωτήρ Behold, Yahweh has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say you to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
- Micah 7:7 σωτήρ But as for me, I will look to Yahweh. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.
- Habakkuk 3:18 σωτήρ Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G4990) 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.
