ἀπατάω
to deceive
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Present-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).
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- 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.
- 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”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
2 distinct verses where G538 appears in the Present tense, across 2 books. 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.
Ephesians 1 verse
James 1 verse
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.
απαταω — transliterated apatáō — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to deceive.” It occurs a mere 3 verses across Scripture. More than a third of its appearances fall in Ephesians. It first appears in Ephesians 5:6. Related forms include απατη. See the sense tree, 3-verse concordance, and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G538 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 →
- 3
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 3 distinct verses.
- 3 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 3 of 27 New Testament books.
- #2,203
- by frequency
- Top 2500 most frequent Greek words (rank 2,203 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 3 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 3 distinct verses.
- Pauline corpus 2 verses · 67%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 1 verse · 33%
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: Being deceived 1×, Deceive 1×, Deceived 1×
- American Standard Version: Beguiled 1×, Being beguiled 1×, Deceive 1×
- Berean Standard Bible: Deceive 1×, He deceives 1×, Was deceived 1×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Deceive 1×, Deceived 1×, Deceiving 1×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G538 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G538 across 6 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G538 across 3 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G538 across 5 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 cheat, beguile, deceive
Word origin
Origin: of uncertain derivation
Of uncertain derivation; to cheat that is delude : - deceive.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms G538 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἀπατάτω apatátō | Verb, Present, Active, Imperative, 3rd person, Singular | Ephesians 5:6 | 1 |
| ἀπατῶν apatō̂n | Verb, Present, Active, Participle, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | James 1:26 | 1 |
| ἠπατήθη ēpatḗthē | Verb, Aorist, Passive, Indicative, 3rd person, Singular | 1 Timothy 2:14 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G538, 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.
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word απαταω appears 30 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 28 verses in 12 books.
- 30
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 28
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 12 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 12 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 3:13 ἀπατάω
- Exodus 22:15 ἀπατάω
- Judges 14:15 ἀπατάω
- 2 Samuel 3:25 ἀπατάω
- 1 Kings 22:20 ἀπατάω
- 2 Kings 18:32 ἀπατάω
- 2 Chronicles 18:2 ἀπατάω
- Job 31:27 ἀπατάω
- Psalms 76:3 ἀπατάω
- Proverbs 24:15 ἀπατάω
- Isaiah 36:14 ἀπατάω
- Jeremiah 4:10 ἀπατάω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G538) 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.
- Genesis 3:13 ἀπατάω Yahweh God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
- Exodus 22:15 ἀπατάω If the owner of it is with it, he shall not make it good. If it is a leased thing, it came for its lease.
- Judges 14:15 ἀπατάω It happened on the seventh day, that they said to Samson's wife, Entice your husband, that he may declare to us the riddle, lest we burn you and your father's house with fire: have you called us to impoverish us? is it not [so]?
- Judges 16:5 ἀπατάω The lords of the Philistines came up to her, and said to her, Entice him, and see in which his great strength lies, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will each give you of us eleven hundred [pieces] of silver.
- 2 Samuel 3:25 ἀπατάω You know Abner the son of Ner, that he came to deceive you, and to know your going out and your coming in, and to know all that you do.
- 1 Kings 22:20 ἀπατάω Yahweh said, Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? One said on this manner; and another said on that manner.
- 1 Kings 22:21 ἀπατάω There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him.
- 1 Kings 22:22 ἀπατάω Yahweh said to him, 'How?' He said, 'I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' He said, 'You shall entice him, and shall prevail also: go forth, and do so.'
- 2 Kings 18:32 ἀπατάω Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and of honey, that you may live, and not die: and don't listen to Hezekiah, when he persuades you, saying, Yahweh will deliver us.
- 2 Chronicles 18:2 ἀπατάω After certain years he went down to Ahab to Samaria. Ahab killed sheep and oxen for him in abundance, and for the people who were with him, and moved him to go up [with him] to Ramoth-gilead.
- 2 Chronicles 18:19 ἀπατάω Yahweh said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? One spoke saying after this manner, and another saying after that manner.
- 2 Chronicles 18:20 ἀπατάω There came forth a spirit, and stood before Yahweh, and said, I will entice him. Yahweh said to him, 'How?'
- 2 Chronicles 18:21 ἀπατάω He said, 'I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' He said, 'You shall entice him, and shall prevail also: go forth, and do so.'
- 2 Chronicles 32:11 ἀπατάω Does not Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, Yahweh our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
- 2 Chronicles 32:15 ἀπατάω Now therefore don't let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you after this manner, neither believe you him; for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of my hand?
- Job 31:27 ἀπατάω And my heart has been secretly enticed, My hand threw a kiss from my mouth:
- Job 36:16 ἀπατάω Yes, he would have allured you out of distress, Into a broad place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.
- Psalms 76:3 ἀπατάω There he broke the flaming arrows of the bow, The shield, and the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah.
- Psalms 77:36 ἀπατάω
- Proverbs 24:15 ἀπατάω Don't lay in wait, wicked man, against the habitation of the righteous. Don't destroy his resting-place:
- Isaiah 36:14 ἀπατάω Thus says the king, Don't let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you:
- Isaiah 36:18 ἀπατάω Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, Yahweh will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
- Isaiah 37:10 ἀπατάω Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.
- Jeremiah 4:10 ἀπατάω Then said I, Ah, Lord Yahweh! surely you have greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, You shall have peace; whereas the sword reaches to the life.
- Jeremiah 20:7 ἀπατάω Yahweh, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded; you are stronger than I, and have prevailed: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, every one mocks me.
- Jeremiah 20:10 ἀπατάω For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, [say] all my familiar friends, those who watch for my fall; peradventure he will be persuaded, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
- Jeremiah 30:2 ἀπατάω Thus speaks Yahweh, the God of Israel, saying, Write you all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.
- Jeremiah 45:22 ἀπατάω
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G538) 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.
