ἀποστέλλω
to send away
‘to send away’ is one of 4 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).
- Perfect
- A completed past action with continuing present results.
- Present
- Ongoing or general action in present time (imperfective aspect).
- Future
- Action expected in future time.
Voice
- Active
- The subject performs the action.
- Passive
- The subject receives the action.
Mood
- Indicative
- States a fact or asks a factual question (the mood of reality).
- Participle
- A verbal adjective (“writing,” “having written”).
- Imperative
- Expresses a command or request.
- Subjunctive
- Expresses probability, purpose, or possibility (the mood of contingency).
- Infinitive
- A verbal noun (“to write”), unmarked for person or number.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
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.
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
18 verses where G649 appears in the Aorist tense in the Book of John. 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.
John
- John 1:19 ἀπέστειλαν aor act ind 3pl This is John's testimony, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, "Who are you?"
- John 3:17 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
- John 3:34 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for God gives the Spirit without measure.
- John 5:38 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg You don't have his word living in you; because you don't believe him whom he sent.
- John 6:29 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
- John 6:57 ἀπέστειλέν aor act ind 3sg As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he who feeds on me, he will also live because of me.
- John 7:32 ἀπέστειλαν aor act ind 3pl The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
- John 8:42 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg Therefore Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven't come of myself, but he sent me.
- John 10:36 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God?'
- John 11:3 ἀπέστειλαν aor act ind 3pl The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, "Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick."
- John 11:42 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me."
- John 17:3 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg This is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and him whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
- John 17:8 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg for the words which you have given me I have given to them, and they received them, and knew for sure that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
- John 17:18 ἀπέστειλας ἀπέστειλα aor act ind 2sg aor act ind 1sg As you sent me into the world, even so I have sent them into the world.
- John 17:21 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me.
- John 17:23 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me.
- John 17:25 ἀπέστειλας aor act ind 2sg Righteous Father, the world hasn't known you, but I knew you; and these knew that you sent me.
- John 18:24 ἀπέστειλεν aor act ind 3sg Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas, the high priest.
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.
αποστελλω (apostéllō) is a Greek verb most often rendered “to send away.” Its lexical range runs to 4 senses. With 130 verses in 13 books, it is a common word in the Greek New Testament. Debuting at Matthew 2:16, it then recurs through the corpus. From the same root come απο, απαγγελλω and απαγχομαι. For the data behind this summary, explore the sense tree and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G649 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 →
- 130
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 130 distinct verses.
- 13 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 13 of 27 New Testament books.
- #128
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 128 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 130 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 130 distinct verses.
- Gospels 94 verses · 72%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 49 verses · 38%
- Johannine 33 verses · 25%
- Pauline corpus 4 verses · 3%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 4 verses · 3%
- Revelation 3 verses · 2%
- Hebrews 1 verse · 1%
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: Sent 37×, He sent 17×, Send 11×
- American Standard Version: Sent 37×, He sent 16×, Send 9×
- Berean Standard Bible: Sent 44×, He sent 17×, Has sent 6×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Sent 34×, He sent 19×, Has sent 8×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G649 across 143 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.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G649 across 138 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 G649 across 132 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.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G649 across 147 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.
Senses in Thayer's
The 4 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 order (one) to go to a place appointed
- to allow one to depart, that he may be in a state of liberty
- to order one to depart, send off
- to drive away
Word origin
Derived from απο (apó) (G575) — from.
Forms in the corpus
The 35 distinct written forms G649 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 G649, 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).
Derived from this word
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 113 — not the complete family. They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word αποστελλω appears 761 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 710 verses in 33 books.
- 761
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 710
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 33 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 33 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 3:23 ἀποστέλλω
- Exodus 2:5 ἀποστέλλω
- Leviticus 14:7 ἀποστέλλω
- Numbers 5:2 ἀποστέλλω
- Deuteronomy 1:22 ἀποστέλλω
- Joshua 1:16 ἀποστέλλω
- Judges 1:25 ἀποστέλλω
- 1 Samuel 4:4 ἀποστέλλω
- 2 Samuel 2:5 ἀποστέλλω
- 1 Kings 1:44 ἀποστέλλω
- 2 Kings 1:2 ἀποστέλλω
- 1 Chronicles 8:8 ἀποστέλλω
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G649) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 710. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 3:23 ἀποστέλλω Therefore Yahweh God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
- Genesis 8:7 ἀποστέλλω and he sent forth a raven. It went back and forth, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
- Genesis 8:8 ἀποστέλλω He sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the surface of the ground,
- Genesis 8:10 ἀποστέλλω He stayed yet another seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.
- Genesis 8:12 ἀποστέλλω He stayed yet another seven days, and sent forth the dove; and she didn't return to him any more.
- Genesis 19:13 ἀποστέλλω for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is grown great before Yahweh. Yahweh has sent us to destroy it."
- Genesis 19:29 ἀποστέλλω It happened, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.
- Genesis 20:2 ἀποστέλλω Abraham said about Sarah his wife, "She is my sister." Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
- Genesis 21:14 ἀποστέλλω Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, and gave her the child, and sent her away. She departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.
- Genesis 24:7 ἀποστέλλω Yahweh, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house, and from the land of my birth, who spoke to me, and who swore to me, saying, 'I will give this land to your seed.' He will send his angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.
- Genesis 24:40 ἀποστέλλω He said to me, 'Yahweh, before whom I walk, will send his angel with you, and prosper your way. You shall take a wife for my son of my relatives, and of my father's house.
- Genesis 25:6 ἀποστέλλω but to the sons of the concubines who Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts. He sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, to the east country.
- Genesis 26:27 ἀποστέλλω Isaac said to them, "Why have you come to me, since you hate me, and have sent me away from you?"
- Genesis 26:29 ἀποστέλλω that you will do us no harm, as we have not touched you, and as we have done to you nothing but good, and have sent you away in peace.' You are now the blessed of Yahweh."
- Genesis 26:31 ἀποστέλλω They rose up some time in the morning, and swore one to another. Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.
- Genesis 27:45 ἀποστέλλω until your brother's anger turn away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him. Then I will send, and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?"
- Genesis 28:5 ἀποστέλλω Isaac sent Jacob away. He went to Paddan Aram to Laban, son of Bethuel the Syrian, Rebekah's brother, Jacob's and Esau's mother.
- Genesis 30:25 ἀποστέλλω It happened, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said to Laban, "Send me away, that I may go to my own place, and to my country.
- Genesis 31:4 ἀποστέλλω Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field to his flock,
- Genesis 31:27 ἀποστέλλω Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn't tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp;
- Genesis 31:42 ἀποστέλλω Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night."
- Genesis 32:4 ἀποστέλλω He commanded them, saying, "This is what you shall tell my lord, Esau: 'This is what your servant, Jacob, says. I have lived as a foreigner with Laban, and stayed until now.
- Genesis 32:6 ἀποστέλλω The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau. Not only that, but he comes to meet you, and four hundred men with him."
- Genesis 32:14 ἀποστέλλω two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams,
- Genesis 32:19 ἀποστέλλω He commanded also the second, and the third, and all that followed the herds, saying, "This is how you shall speak to Esau, when you find him.
- Genesis 32:27 ἀποστέλλω He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob."
- Genesis 37:13 ἀποστέλλω Israel said to Joseph, "Aren't your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them." He said to him, "Here I am."
- Genesis 37:14 ἀποστέλλω He said to him, "Go now, see whether it is well with your brothers, and well with the flock; and bring me word again." So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
- Genesis 37:32 ἀποστέλλω They took the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father, and said, "We have found this. Examine it, now, whether it is your son's coat or not."
- Genesis 38:17 ἀποστέλλω He said, "I will send you a kid of the goats from the flock." She said, "Will you give me a pledge, until you send it?"
- Genesis 38:20 ἀποστέλλω Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand of his friend, the Adullamite, to receive the pledge from the woman's hand, but he didn't find her.
- Genesis 38:23 ἀποστέλλω Judah said, "Let her keep it, lest we be shamed. Behold, I sent this kid, and you haven't found her."
- Genesis 38:25 ἀποστέλλω When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying, "By the man, whose these are, I am with child." She also said, "Please discern whose are these-- the signet, and the cords, and the staff."
- Genesis 41:8 ἀποστέλλω It happened in the morning that his spirit was troubled, and he sent and called for all the magicians of Egypt, and all the wise men of it. Pharaoh told them his dream, but there was no one who could interpret them to Pharaoh.
- Genesis 41:14 ἀποστέλλω Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon. He shaved himself, changed his clothing, and came in to Pharaoh.
- Genesis 42:4 ἀποστέλλω But Jacob didn't send Benjamin, Joseph's brother, with his brothers; for he said, "Lest perhaps harm happen to him."
- Genesis 42:16 ἀποστέλλω Send one of you, and let him get your brother, and you shall be bound, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you, or else by the life of Pharaoh surely you are spies."
- Genesis 43:4 ἀποστέλλω If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food,
- Genesis 43:5 ἀποστέλλω but if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, 'You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.'"
- Genesis 43:8 ἀποστέλλω Judah said to Israel, his father, "Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, so that we may live, and not die, both we, and you, and also our little ones.
- Genesis 43:14 ἀποστέλλω May God Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may release to you your other brother and Benjamin. If I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved."
- Genesis 44:3 ἀποστέλλω As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away, they and their donkeys.
- Genesis 45:1 ἀποστέλλω Then Joseph couldn't control himself before all those who stood before him, and he cried, "Cause every man to go out from me!" There stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known to his brothers.
- Genesis 45:5 ἀποστέλλω Now don't be grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.
- Genesis 45:7 ἀποστέλλω God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
- Genesis 45:8 ἀποστέλλω So now it wasn't you who sent me here, but God, and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
- Genesis 45:23 ἀποστέλλω To his father, he sent after this manner: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and provision for his father by the way.
- Genesis 45:24 ἀποστέλλω So he sent his brothers away, and they departed. He said to them, "See that you don't quarrel on the way."
- Genesis 45:27 ἀποστέλλω They told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them. When he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob, their father, revived.
- Genesis 46:5 ἀποστέλλω Jacob rose up from Beersheba, and the sons of Israel carried Jacob, their father, their little ones, and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G649) 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.
