ἀπαιτέω
to demand back
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
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
Number
- Plural
- More than one.
- Singular
- One.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural 1 time (50%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular 1 time (50%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 2 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G523 appears — 2 distinct verses across 1 book. 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.
Luke 2 verses
- Luke 6:30 ἀπαίτει pres act impv 2sg Give to everyone who asks you, and don't ask him who takes away your goods to give them back again.
- Luke 12:20 ἀπαιτοῦσιν pres act ind 3pl "But God said to him, 'You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared--whose will they be?'
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.
“to demand back” is the headline sense of the Greek word απαιτεω (apaitéō). It is rare — just 2 verses in the entire Greek New Testament. It clusters heavily in Luke, which alone accounts for 100% of its uses. First canonically at Luke 6:30, it enters the text early. From the same root come απο, απαγγελλω and απαγχομαι. See the sense tree, 2-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G523 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 →
- 2
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 2 distinct verses.
- 1 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 1 of 27 New Testament books.
- #2,678
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Greek words (rank 2,678 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 2 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- Luke 2 verses 100%
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 2 distinct verses.
- Gospels 2 verses · 100%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 2 verses · 100%
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: Again 1×, Ask 1×, Shall be required 1×
- American Standard Version: Again 1×, Ask 1×, Required 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Demand back 1×, Will be required 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Ask for it back 1×, Do 1×, They are demanding 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G523 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G523 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G523 across 2 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G523 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
- to ask back, demand back, exact something due
Word origin
Derived from απο (apó) (G575) — from.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms G523 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀπαίτει apaítei | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 2nd person, Singular | Luke 6:30 | 1 |
| ἀπαιτοῦσιν apaitoûsin | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 3rd person, Plural | Luke 12:20 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G523, 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
- απαγγελλω apangéllō G518 to report
- απαγχομαι apánchomai G519 to strangle
- απαγω apágō G520 to lead away
- απαιρω apaírō G522 to take away
- απαλγεω apalgéō G524 to cease grieving
- απαλλασσω apallássō G525 to depart
- απαλλοτριοω apallotrióō G526 to estrange
- απανταω apantáō G528 to meet
- απαρνεομαι aparnéomai G533 to deny
- απαρτι apárti G534 henceforth
- απαρχη aparchḗ G536 to offer firstfruits
- απαυγασμα apaúgasma G541 brightness
- απειδω apeídō G542 to look away
- απειμι ápeimi G548 to depart
- απειμι ápeimi G549 to depart
- απειπομην apeipómēn G550 to declare
- απεκδεχομαι apekdéchomai G553 waiting for
- απεκδυομαι apekdýomai G554 to despoil
- απελαυνω apelaúnō G556 to drive away
- απελεγμος apelegmós G557 censure
- απελευθερος apeleútheros G558 freedman
- απελπιζω apelpízō G560 not despairing
- απεναντι apénanti G561 opposite
- απερχομαι apérchomai G565 to depart
+85 more words share this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 111 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word απαιτεω appears 9 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 8 verses in 4 books.
- 9
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 8
- 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 15:2 ἀποαἰτέω
- 2 Chronicles 36:4 ἀποαἰτέω
- Ezra 15:7 ἀποαἰτέω
- Isaiah 3:12 ἀποαἰτέω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G523) 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 15:2 ἀποαἰτέω This is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother; because Yahweh's release has been proclaimed.
- Deuteronomy 15:3 ἀποαἰτέω Of a foreigner you may exact it: but whatever of your is with your brother your hand shall release.
- 2 Chronicles 36:4 ἀποαἰτέω The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt.
- Ezra 15:7 ἀποαἰτέω
- Isaiah 3:12 ἀποαἰτέω As for my people, children are their oppressors, And women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to err, And destroy the way of your paths.
- Isaiah 9:3 ἀποαἰτέω You have multiplied the nation, you have increased their joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
- Isaiah 14:4 ἀποαἰτέω that you shall take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
- Isaiah 30:33 ἀποαἰτέω For a Topheth is prepared of old; yes, for the king it is made ready; he has made it deep and large; the pile of it is fire and much wood; the breath of Yahweh, like a stream of sulfur, does kindle it.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G523) 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.
