Βαραββᾶς
Barabbas
Thayer's lists 2 entries for ‘Barabbas’ fuller range ↓
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
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
Gender
- Masculine
- Grammatically masculine.
Number
- Singular
- One.
Every verse where G912 appears in the Book of Matthew — 5 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.
Matthew
- Matthew 27:16 Βαραββᾶν n acc sg masc They had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
- Matthew 27:17 Βαραββᾶν n acc sg masc When therefore they were gathered together, Pilate said to them, "Whom do you want me to release to you? Barabbas, or Jesus, who is called Christ?"
- Matthew 27:20 Βαραββᾶν n acc sg masc Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the multitudes to ask for Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.
- Matthew 27:21 Βαραββᾶν n acc sg masc But the governor answered them, "Which of the two do you want me to release to you?" They said, "Barabbas!"
- Matthew 27:26 Βαραββᾶν n acc sg masc Then he released to them Barabbas, but Jesus he flogged and delivered to be crucified.
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.
Βαραββας — transliterated Barabbâs — is a Greek name carrying the sense “Barabbas.” More than half of its appearances fall in Matthew. The Greek New Testament uses it across 10 verses — uncommon. It first appears in Matthew 27:16. See 10-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G912 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.
- 4 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 4 of 27 New Testament books.
- #978
- by frequency
- Top 1000 most frequent Greek words (rank 978 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 10 verses · 100%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 1 verse · 10%
- Johannine 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: Barabbas 11×
- American Standard Version: Barabbas 11×
- Berean Standard Bible: Barabbas 11×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Barabbas 11×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G912 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G912 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G912 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G912 across 11 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
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.
- Barabbas = "son of a father or master"
- the captive robber whom the Jews begged Pilate to release instead of Christ
Word origin
Derived from בר (bar) (H1247) — son.
Forms in the corpus
The 2 distinct written forms G912 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Βαραββᾶν Barabbân | Noun, Accusative, Singular, Masculine | Matthew 27:16 | 9 |
| Βαραββᾶς Barabbâs | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Masculine | Mark 15:7 | 2 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G912, 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
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- Βαρθολομαιος Bartholomaîos G918 Bartholomew
- Βαριησους Bariēsoûs G919 Bar-Jesus
- Βαριωνας Bariōnâs G920 Cephas
- Βαρναβας Barnábas G921 Barnabas
- Βαρσαβας Barsabâs G923 Barsabas
- Βαρτιμαιος Bartimaîos G924 Bartimaeus
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 9 — not the complete family. 6 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Barabbas). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
I.e., son of Abba or of a father, a notorious robber whom Pilate proposed to condemn to death instead of Jesus, whom he wished to release, in accordance with the Roman custom (John 18:40; Mark 15:7; Luke 23:19). But the Jews were so bent on the death of Jesus that they demanded that Barabbas should be pardoned (Matt. 27:16-26; Acts 3:14). This Pilate did.
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(son of Abba), a robber, (John 18:40) who had committed murder in an insurrection, (Mark 15:7; Luke 28:18) in Jerusalem and was lying in prison the time of the trial of Jesus before Pilate.p
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
son of shame, confusion
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
