ἀπολύω
to release
‘to release’ is one of 8 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).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Imperfect
- Continuous or repeated action in past time (“was writing”).
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
- Middle
- The subject acts on or for itself, or with special interest in the action.
Mood
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
Person
- 3rd person
- The one spoken about (“he / she / it / they”).
- 2nd person
- The one addressed (“you”).
- 1st person
- The speaker (“I / we”).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
- Feminine
- Grammatically feminine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
Every verse where G630 appears in the Book of Acts — 16 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.
Acts
- Acts 3:13 ἀπολύειν pres act inf The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him.
- Acts 4:21 ἀπέλυσαν aor act ind 3pl When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people; for everyone glorified God for that which was done.
- Acts 4:23 Ἀπολυθέντες aor pass ptcp nom pl masc Being let go, they came to their own company, and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
- Acts 5:40 ἀπέλυσαν aor act ind 3pl They agreed with him. Summoning the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
- Acts 13:3 ἀπέλυσαν aor act ind 3pl Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.
- Acts 15:30 ἀπολυθέντες aor pass ptcp nom pl masc So, when they were sent off, they came to Antioch. Having gathered the multitude together, they delivered the letter.
- Acts 15:33 ἀπελύθησαν aor pass ind 3pl After they had spent some time there, they were sent back with greetings from the brothers to the apostles.
- Acts 16:35 ἀπόλυσον aor act impv 2sg But when it was day, the magistrates sent the sergeants, saying, "Let those men go."
- Acts 16:36 ἀπολυθῆτε aor pass subj 2pl The jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go; now therefore come out, and go in peace."
- Acts 17:9 ἀπέλυσαν aor act ind 3pl When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.
- Acts 19:41 ἀπέλυσεν aor act ind 3sg When he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly.
- Acts 22:16 ἀπόλυσαι aor act inf Now why do you wait? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.'
- Acts 23:22 ἀπέλυσε aor act ind 3sg So the commanding officer let the young man go, charging him, "Tell no one that you have revealed these things to me."
- Acts 26:32 ἀπολελύσθαι perf pass inf Agrippa said to Festus, "This man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar."
- Acts 28:18 ἀπολῦσαι aor act inf who, when they had examined me, desired to set me free, because there was no cause of death in me.
- Acts 28:25 ἀπελύοντο impf mid ind 3pl When they didn't agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word, "The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah, the prophet, to our fathers,
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.
απολυω — transliterated apolýō — is a Greek verb carrying the sense “to release.” Its lexical range runs to 8 senses. Spanning 62 verses in 6 books, it ranks among the moderately common words of the Greek New Testament. Its uses concentrate in Matthew (29% of all occurrences). Debuting at Matthew 1:19, it then recurs through the corpus. 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 G630 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 →
- 62
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 62 distinct verses.
- 6 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 6 of 27 New Testament books.
- #247
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 247 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 62 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 62 distinct verses.
- Gospels 45 verses · 73%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 28 verses · 45%
- Johannine 3 verses · 5%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 2%
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: Away 12×, Release 8×, Go 6×
- American Standard Version: Away 14×, Release 7×, Send 5×
- Berean Standard Bible: Release 15×, Divorces 6×, Released 5×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Away 11×, Release 8×, Divorce 5×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G630 across 89 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 28 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 G630 across 89 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 35 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 G630 across 66 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 23 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 G630 across 80 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus other, less common renderings. Plus 27 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
8 senses in Thayer's, in lexicon order
The 8 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 set free
- to let go, dismiss, (to detain no longer)
- a captive i.e. to loose his bonds and bid him depart, to give him liberty to depart
- to acquit one accused of a crime and set him at liberty
- indulgently to grant a prisoner leave to depart
- to release a debtor, i.e. not to press one's claim against him, to remit his debt
- used of divorce, to dismiss from the house, to repudiate. The wife of a Greek or Roman may divorce her husband.
- to send one's self away, to depart
Word origin
Derived from απο (apó) (G575) — from.
From G575 and G3089 ; to free fully that is (literally) relieve release dismiss (reflexively depart ) or (figuratively) let die pardon or (specifically) divorce : - (let) depart dismiss divorce forgive let go loose put (send) away release set at liberty.
— Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (1890), public domain.
Forms in the corpus
The 28 distinct written forms G630 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that tense’s occurrences in the concordance.
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G630, 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
- απαιτεω apaitéō G523 to demand back
- 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
+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 απολυω appears 4 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 4 verses in 4 books.
- 4
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 4
- 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
- Genesis 15:2 ἀπολύω
- Exodus 33:11 ἀπολύω
- Numbers 20:29 ἀπολύω
- Psalms 33:1 ἀπολύω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G630) 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 15:2 ἀπολύω Abram said, "Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and he who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?"
- Exodus 33:11 ἀπολύω Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. He turned again into the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, didn't depart out of the Tent.
- Numbers 20:29 ἀπολύω When all the congregation saw that Aaron was dead, they wept for Aaron thirty days, even all the house of Israel.
- Psalms 33:1 ἀπολύω Rejoice in Yahweh, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G630) 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.
