φονεύω
to murder
‘to murder’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Aorist-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).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
Mood
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
Person
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Grammatical forms
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Singular 3 times (25%)
- Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 3 times (25%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural 2 times (17%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural 1 time (8%)
- Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular 1 time (8%)
Parsed forms decoded from the imported morphology (Robinson–Tischendorf, public domain), counted across 12 parsed occurrences — not distinct verses.
Every verse where G5407 appears — 10 distinct verses across 5 books. 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.
Matthew 4 verses
- Matthew 5:21 φονεύσεις φονεύσῃ fut act ind 2sg aor act subj 3sg "You have heard that it was said to the ancient ones, 'You shall not murder;' and 'Whoever shall murder shall be in danger of the judgment.'
- Matthew 19:18 φονεύσεις fut act ind 2sg He said to him, "Which ones?" Jesus said, "'You shall not murder.' 'You shall not commit adultery.' 'You shall not steal.' 'You shall not offer false testimony.'
- Matthew 23:31 φονευσάντων aor act ptcp gen pl masc Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.
- Matthew 23:35 ἐφονεύσατε aor act ind 2pl that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.
Mark 1 verse
Luke 1 verse
Romans 1 verse
James 3 verses
- James 2:11 φονεύσῃς φονεύεις aor act subj 2sg pres act ind 2sg For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," said also, "Do not commit murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
- James 4:2 φονεύετε pres act ind 2pl You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask.
- James 5:6 ἐφονεύσατε aor act ind 2pl You have condemned, you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn't resist you.
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.
φονευω (phoneúō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to murder.” Its English rendering has broadened — “kill” classically, “do not murder” (Berean Standard Bible) in modern versions; see the renderings breakdown. Spanning 10 verses in 5 books, it ranks among the uncommon words of the Greek New Testament. Matthew dominates its distribution — 4 of 10 verses. Its lexical range runs to 2 senses. The sections below give every sense, occurrence, and version rendering.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G5407 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 →
- 10
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 10 distinct verses.
- 5 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 5 of 27 New Testament books.
- #904
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 904 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 10 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 10 distinct verses.
- Gospels 6 verses · 60%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 3 verses · 30%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 10%
- Pauline corpus 1 verse · 10%
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: Kill 5×, Do 3×, Killed 2×
- American Standard Version: Kill 7×, Do 3×, Thou shalt 3×
- Berean Standard Bible: Do not murder 5×, Murdered 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Do 5×, Kill 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G5407 across 18 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G5407 across 18 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 G5407 across 12 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 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 G5407 across 18 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.
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 kill, slay, murder
- to commit murder
Word origin
Derived from φονευς (phoneús) (G5406) — murderer.
From G5406 ; to be a murderer (of): - kill do murder slay.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G5407 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| φονεύσεις phoneúseis | Verb, Future, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | Matthew 5:21 | 3 |
| φονεύσῃς phoneúsēs | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 2nd person, Singular | Mark 10:19 | 3 |
| ἐφονεύσατε ephoneúsate | Verb, Aorist, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural | Matthew 23:35 | 2 |
| φονευσάντων phoneusántōn | Verb, Aorist, Active, Participle, Genitive, Plural, Masculine | Matthew 23:31 | 1 |
| φονεύεις phoneúeis | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Singular | James 2:11 | 1 |
| φονεύετε phoneúete | Verb, Present, Active, Indicative, 2nd person, Plural | James 4:2 | 1 |
| φονεύσῃ phoneúsē | Verb, Aorist, Active, Subjunctive, 3rd person, Singular | Matthew 5:21 | 1 |
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word φονευω appears 45 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 41 verses in 13 books.
- 45
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 41
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 13 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 13 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Exodus 20:15 φονεύω
- Numbers 35:6 φονεύω
- Deuteronomy 4:42 φονεύω
- Joshua 10:28 φονεύω
- Judges 16:2 φονεύω
- 1 Kings 20:19 φονεύω
- 2 Chronicles 25:3 φονεύω
- Ezra 14:5 φονεύω
- Psalms 61:4 φονεύω
- Proverbs 1:32 φονεύω
- Jeremiah 7:9 φονεύω
- Lamentations 2:20 φονεύω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G5407) 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 20:15 φονεύω "You shall not steal.
- Exodus 21:13 φονεύω but not if it is unintentional, but God allows it to happen: then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.
- Numbers 35:6 φονεύω The cities which you shall give to the Levites, they shall be the six cities of refuge, which you shall give for the manslayer to flee to: and besides them you shall give forty-two cities.
- Numbers 35:12 φονεύω The cities shall be to you for refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer not die, until he stands before the congregation for judgment.
- Numbers 35:19 φονεύω The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death: when he meets him, he shall put him to death.
- Numbers 35:21 φονεύω or in enmity struck him with his hand, so that he died; he who struck him shall surely be put to death; he is a murderer: the avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death, when he meets him.
- Numbers 35:25 φονεύω and the congregation shall deliver the manslayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, where he was fled: and he shall dwell therein until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.
- Numbers 35:26 φονεύω But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the border of his city of refuge, where he flees,
- Numbers 35:27 φονεύω and the avenger of blood find him outside of the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kill the manslayer; he shall not be guilty of blood,
- Numbers 35:28 φονεύω because he should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest: but after the death of the high priest the manslayer shall return into the land of his possession.
- Numbers 35:30 φονεύω Whoever kills any person, the murderer shall be slain at the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person that he die.
- Numbers 35:31 φονεύω Moreover you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death; but he shall surely be put to death.
- Deuteronomy 4:42 φονεύω that the manslayer might flee there, who kills his neighbor unawares, and didn't hate him in time past; and that fleeing to one of these cities he might live:
- Deuteronomy 5:18 φονεύω "Neither shall you commit adultery.
- Deuteronomy 19:6 φονεύω lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him mortally; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he didn't hate him in time past.
- Deuteronomy 22:26 φονεύω but to the lady you shall do nothing; there is in the lady no sin worthy of death: for as when a man rises against his neighbor, and kills him, even so is this matter;
- Joshua 10:28 φονεύω Joshua took Makkedah on that day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and the king of it: he utterly destroyed them and all the souls who were therein; he left none remaining; and he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.
- Joshua 10:30 φονεύω and Yahweh delivered it also, and the king of it, into the hand of Israel; and he struck it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls who were therein; he left none remaining in it; and he did to the king of it as he had done to the king of Jericho.
- Joshua 10:32 φονεύω and Yahweh delivered Lachish into the hand of Israel; and he took it on the second day, and struck it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls who were therein, according to all that he had done to Libnah.
- Joshua 10:35 φονεύω and they took it on that day, and struck it with the edge of the sword; and all the souls who were therein he utterly destroyed that day, according to all that he had done to Lachish.
- Joshua 21:13 φονεύω To the children of Aaron the priest they gave Hebron with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Libnah with its suburbs,
- Joshua 21:21 φονεύω They gave them Shechem with its suburbs in the hill-country of Ephraim, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Gezer with its suburbs,
- Joshua 21:27 φονεύω To the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, out of the half-tribe of Manasseh [they gave] Golan in Bashan with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Be-eshterah with its suburbs; two cities.
- Joshua 21:32 φονεύω Out of the tribe of Naphtali, Kedesh in Galilee with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Hammothdor with its suburbs, and Kartan with its suburbs; three cities.
- Joshua 21:36 φονεύω Out of the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its suburbs, and Jahaz with its suburbs,
- Joshua 21:38 φονεύω Out of the tribe of Gad, Ramoth in Gilead with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Mahanaim with its suburbs,
- Judges 16:2 φονεύω [It was told] the Gazites, saying, Samson is come here. They compassed him in, and laid wait for him all night in the gate of the city, and were quiet all the night, saying, [Let be] until morning light, then we will kill him.
- Judges 20:4 φονεύω The Levite, the husband of the woman who was murdered, answered, I came into Gibeah that belongs to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge.
- Judges 20:5 φονεύω The men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about me by night; me they thought to have slain, and my concubine they forced, and she is dead.
- 1 Kings 20:19 φονεύω So these went out of the city, the young men of the princes of the provinces, and the army which followed them.
- 1 Kings 21:40 φονεύω
- 2 Chronicles 25:3 φονεύω Now it happened, when the kingdom was established to him, that he killed his servants who had killed the king his father.
- Ezra 14:5 φονεύω
- Ezra 16:10 φονεύω
- Psalms 61:4 φονεύω I will dwell in your tent forever. I will take refuge in the shelter of your wings. Selah.
- Psalms 93:6 φονεύω
- Proverbs 1:32 φονεύω For the backsliding of the simple will kill them. The careless ease of fools will destroy them.
- Proverbs 7:26 φονεύω For she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty host.
- Jeremiah 7:9 φονεύω Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods that you have not known,
- Lamentations 2:20 φονεύω Look, Yahweh, and see to whom you have done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?
- Hosea 6:9 φονεύω As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, So the company of priests murder in the way toward Shechem, Committing shameful crimes.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G5407) 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.
