Features

You don’t have to spend 100s of dollars on fancy Bible software and download gigabytes of data just to look up a Greek word any more. Just visit the online lexicon app and start typing the word. No Greek keyboard? No worries! You can type Latin letters and immediately see results that match what you’ve typed so far. What if you only know the Strong’s number and don’t know any Greek at all? Step right up, we’ve got you covered! Just type in the Strong’s number (no prefix needed) and you’ll be all set in less than a second.

Just looking for a quick gloss of the word? Look for the entries in bold. Or keep reading the whole entry to get a better sense for how the word is used in different contexts (highly recommended). Entries in a lighter grey type give additional information about the etymology of the word, or synonyms.

Want to see where that word is used in the New Testament? Just scroll down and click on the Strong’s number to be taken to a page where every verse is listed!

Coming soon: all the verse references in the lexicon will be hyperlinked so you can immediately see how the word is used in context in the Greek New Testament.

Credits

Most of the credit goes to the fine folks behind the translatable-exegetical-tools/Abbott-Smith project. They invested a LOT of time and effort into digitizing the printed copy of Abbott-Smith’s lexicon and marking it up in a way that’s easy for computers to parse. This little lexicon app would never have existed without their labors. Credit is also due to Jeffrey N. who took my feeble initial efforts in Javascript and improved them nearly beyond recognition!

Are you missing a feature? This project is freely licensed, so you can make a copy and add your own changes! Or you can report a bug or request a feature to be added. Details are on GitHub: https://github.com/mrgreekgeek/abbott-smith-greek-lexicon-online

These are all free to share; no attribution required. As far as I can recall, the photos are all from Pixabay (or a similar free image site), and the Greek text is from the Byzantine GNT, which is licensed as public domain. Enjoy!

(Click to open large/download)

Byzantine Texts

• Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform, Public Domain. (PDF)
• Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Textform (Readers Edition), Public Domain.
• Family 35 (Pickering), CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (plain text).
• Solid Rock GNT, Public Domain.
• Text Critical GNT, Public Domain/CC BY 4.0. (PDF)
• Antoniades’ 1904 Patriarchal edition, Public Domain.

Textus Receptus

• KJV Textus Receptus (from CNTR), CC BY 4.0.
• Stephanus 1550, (from CNTR), CC BY 4.0. [removes movable nu]
• Stephanus 1550, (from Maurice Robinson), public domain.

Critical Texts

• Tischendorf, 8th Ed., Public Domain.
• Tregelles, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
• Statistical Restoration GNT, CC BY 4.0.
• SBL GNT, (from Logos) CC BY 4.0.
• Unfolding Word GNT, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Westcott & Hort, CC BY-SA.
• Nestle 1904, Public Domain. (See also)
• Berean Greek Bible, custom license.

More Free Resources

If you’d like to dig further, check out these lists of more free original language resources:

• Awesome Bible Data
• Biblical Humanities
• Greek Bibles at ebible.org

I’ve been wanting to make some Mr. Greek Geek video content for a while now, and I thought that this would be a good way to start out. I’m inviting you to join with me in memorizing Matthew 28:1-10 by watching and listening to the following video as a way to start out with familiarizing yourself with the text.

I started out with a slow recording for those who may not be very familiar with the text, and then read it again at a normal (for me) reading rate. Finally, just for fun, I added a page from Codex Sinaiticus so that you can read an ancient version of the text while you listen!

Enjoy!

Merriam Webster’s defines “idiom” this way: “an expression in the usage of a language that is peculiar to itself either in having a meaning that cannot be derived from the conjoined meanings of its elements (such as up in the air for “undecided”) or in its grammatically atypical use of words (such as give way).”¹ That’s a dictionary definition for you. I like this one better: “idioms are sentences that sound ridiculous to everyone but the native speakers who use them.“²

It should be no surprise that the Greeks had their own idioms. A few of them even show up in the Greek New Testament! This post is a little excursion into some of the less obvious idioms that often get “translated away” by English translations, because they wouldn’t communicate the same thing in English.

As an amateur Greek student, I have spent enough time with the Greek language in speaking, hearing, and reading it that I can tell when I see many of these that “this one isn’t necessarily meant to be taken ‘literally'”. What I don’t know, however, is how many of these idioms may in fact be Hebrew idioms that were translated into Greek, and understood by the original readers simply because they knew the Hebrew language and culture. I have attempted to sort out some of the more obvious Hebrew idioms into a separate section below.

As often happens, this post was inspired by reading someone else’s post. In this case, I was reading a post from The Ezra Project, which got my wheels to turning. But, enough of the introductions! Let’s cut right to the chase, and look at some of the most interesting Greek (and Hebrew) idioms in the New Testament!

Interesting Greek Idioms in the New Testament

Ἐκύκλωσαν οὖν αὐτὸν οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, καὶ ἔλεγον αὐτῷ, Ἕως πότε τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν αἴρεις; Εἰ σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστός, εἰπὲ ἡμῖν παρρησίᾳ.

John 10:24

Here’s the NET Bible note (tn #62) for John 10:24:
“How long will you take away our life?” (an idiom which meant to keep one from coming to a conclusion about something). The use of the phrase τὴν ψυχὴν ἡμῶν αἴρεις (tēn psuchēn hēmōn aireis) meaning “to keep in suspense” is not well attested, although it certainly fits the context here. In modern Greek the phrase means “to annoy, bother.”

ἐλπίζω δὲ εὐθέως ἰδεῖν σε, καὶ στόμα πρὸς στόμα λαλήσομεν.

3 John 14

Here’s the NET Bible note (tn #30) for 3 John 14:
Grk “speak mouth to mouth,” an idiom for which the contemporary English equivalent is “speak face-to-face.”

Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ ἡ γέννησις οὕτως ἦν. Μνηστευθείσης γὰρ τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτούς, εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου.

Matthew. 1:18

Louw & Nida 23.50 makes a brief comment about this, “ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχω (an idiom, literally ‘to have in the womb’): to be in a state of pregnancy — ‘pregnant, to be pregnant.’”

Θέσθε ὑμεῖς εἰς τὰ ὦτα ὑμῶν τοὺς λόγους τούτους· ὁ γὰρ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου μέλλει παραδίδοσθαι εἰς χεῖρας ἀνθρώπων.

Luke 9:44

Here’s the NET Bible note (tn #155) for Luke 9:44:
Grk “Place these words into your ears,” an idiom. The meaning is either “do not forget these words” (L&N 29.5) or “Listen carefully to these words” (L&N 24.64). See also Exod 17:14…

Καὶ ἐλθὼν εὑρίσκει αὐτοὺς πάλιν καθεύδοντας, ἦσαν γὰρ αὐτῶν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ βεβαρημένοι.

Matthew 26:43

Louw & Nida 23.69 explains: “(idioms, literally ‘their eyes were weighed down’) to become excessively or exceedingly sleepy — ‘to have become very sleepy, to be very sleepy.’” [cf. Mark 14:40]

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Μὴ δύνανται οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος πενθεῖν, ἐφ’ ὅσον μετ’ αὐτῶν ἐστιν ὁ νυμφίος;

Matthew 9:15

Louw & Nida 11.7 gives this succinct explanation: “υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος (an idiom, literally: sons of the wedding hall) guests at a wedding, or more specifically, friends of the bridegroom participating in wedding festivities — wedding guests or friends of the bridegroom — A literal rendering of the idiom ‘sons of the wedding hall’ has often been seriously misunderstood, for example, the bride’s children born prior to the marriage. (Matt 9:15; Mark 2:19; Luke 5:34)” See also Carl Hagensick’s article in The Herald Magazine.

Hebrew Idioms in the Greek New Testament

Λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι; Οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου.³

John 2:4

Here’s the NET Bible note (tn #8) for John 2:4
Grk “Woman, what to me and to you?” (an idiom). The phrase τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, γύναι is Semitic in origin. The equivalent Hebrew expression in the Old Testament had two basic meanings:
(1) When one person was unjustly bothering another, the injured party could say “What to me and to you?” meaning, “What have I done to you that you should do this to me?” (Judg 11:12, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kgs 17:18).
(2) When someone was asked to get involved in a matter he felt was no business of his, he could say to the one asking him, “What to me and to you?” meaning, “That is your business, how am I involved?” (2 Kgs 3:13, Hos 14:8).
Option (1) implies hostility, while option (2) implies merely disengagement. Mere disengagement is almost certainly to be understood here as better fitting the context (although some of the Greek Fathers took the remark as a rebuke to Mary, such a rebuke is unlikely).

Καὶ εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτούς, Ἐπιθυμίᾳ ἐπεθύμησα τοῦτο τὸ Πάσχα φαγεῖν μεθ’ ὑμῶν πρὸ τοῦ με παθεῖν·

Luke 22:15

In Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers we find this explanation: “with desire I have desired.—The peculiar mode of expressing intensity by the use of a cognate noun with the verb of action, though found sometimes in other languages, is an idiom characteristically Hebrew (comp. “thou shalt surely die” for “dying thou shalt die,” in Genesis 2:17), and its use here suggests the thought that St. Luke heard what he reports from some one who repeated the very words which our Lord had spoken in Aramaic.”

Ὁ λύχνος τοῦ σώματός ἐστιν ὁ ὀφθαλμός· ἐὰν οὖν ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ἁπλοῦς ᾖ, ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου φωτεινὸν ἔσται· ἐὰν δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου πονηρὸς ᾖ, ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου σκοτεινὸν ἔσται. Εἰ οὖν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἐν σοὶ σκότος ἐστίν, τὸ σκότος πόσον;

Matthew 6:22-23

Jim Myers wrote an excellent article called “Those Mysterious Eyes” from which I’ve gleaned some of the thoughts below. The key to understanding the words of Jesus in Matt. 6:22-23 is knowing what the Hebrew Old Testament says about “good eye” and “evil eye”.

The good of eye — he is blessed, For he hath given of his bread to the poor. (Prov. 22:9 YLT)

Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart… and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; (Deut. 15:9 KJV)

Here’s the NET Bible note (tn #23) for Proverbs 22:9, which could be the passage Jesus had in mind when he spoke these words: “Heb “good of eye.” This expression is an attributive genitive meaning “bountiful of eye” (cf. KJV, ASV “He that hath a bountiful eye”). This is the opposite of the “evil eye” which is covetous and wicked. The “eye” is a metonymy representing looking well to people’s needs. So this refers to the generous person (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).”

And I guess we’ll wrap it up there for now!

Sources:

• “Hebraisms” by Michael D. Marlowe (a good overview of Hebrew influence on the Greek NT).
• “New Testament Figures of Speech” compiled by Wayne Leman.
• “New Testament Idioms” compiled by Wayne Leman.

I had some nice English stationery on hand, so I decided to try to make something similar in Greek! It’s not quite the same, but pretty close, eh?

Here’s a clearer view:

Download the full PDF here, so you can print it off yourself!

Printing instructions:
The PDF is formatted as letter size (11×8.5 inches).
Print in horizontal layout and set the scale to “None” or 100%.
Do NOT select “fit to page” or you’ll get the fine print at the bottom of the page.

Enjoy! If you’d like to receive an email when I post things like this in the future, scroll to the bottom of the page, and sign up!

If you’d like to see some more stationery like this feel free to leave a comment below with suggestions for Bible verses, etc, and I’ll see what I can do.

Credits:
Free Font: Arima Madurai (Arima Greek)
Lighthouse photo by Stephen Bedase on Unsplash
Flourish image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Print Editions

Parallel New Testament: Cambridge’s King James Version and Stephanus’ Greek 1550
By Dr. Bruce A. Klein, Th.D.
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 9781300363361

Parallel Greek Received Text and King James Version The New Testament
by Frederick H. A. Scrivener (Author), Steve Combs (Editor)
Publisher: The Old Paths Publications, Inc.
ISBN: 9781734192766
Online sample: PDF

Complete Word Study New Testament w/ Parallel Greek: KJV Edition
Ancient Greek Edition by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates
Publisher: AMG Publishers
ISBN: 9780899576527

The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ: According to the Received Greek Text, Together with The English Authorised Version Arranged in Paragraphs
Published by British and Foreign Bible Society
(No ISBN)
Read online: http://books.google.com/books?id=A2EwAQAAMAAJ

He Kaine diatheke = The New Testament : consisting of the Greek text of Scholz, with the readings, both textual and marginal of Griesbach ; and the variations of the editions of Stephens, 1550 ; Beza, 1598 ; and the Elzevir, 1663, with the English Authorised Version, and its marginal renderings.
by Karl William Henry Scholz
ISBN: 9781345292015 (NOTE: this is probably a low-quality fascimile reprint!)
Read online: https://archive.org/details/hekainediatheken00scho/page/n7/mode/2up

Online-Only Editions

The Greek and English Testament Η ΚΑΙΝΕ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ Ex Editione Stephani Tertia, 1550
The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ : According to the Authorized Version. The Greek and English Texts Arranged in Parallel Columns
Read online: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b000948030

The parallel New Testament Greek and English : The New Testament of our lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, being the authorized version set forth in 1611, arranged in parallel columns with the revised version of 1881 and with the orginal Greek according to the text followed in the authorised version, with the variations adopted in the revised version
by Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, 1813-1891
Read online: https://archive.org/details/parallelnewtesta00scri/

The New Testament, Greek and English, in parallel columns : with various readings
by John Mill 1645-1707
Read online: https://archive.org/details/newtestamentgree00mill/

The critical Greek and English New Testament consisting of the Greek text of Scholz, with the readings, both textual and marginal, of Griesbach; and the variations of the editions of Stephens, 1550; Beza, 1598; and the Elzevir, 1633 : with the English Authorised version, and its marginal renderings
By Johann Martin Augustin Scholz
Read online: https://archive.org/details/criticalgreekan00schogoog/

Old & New Testament Hebrew/Greek parallel with KJV

The English Version of the Polyglott Bible; Containing The Old And New Testaments With A Copious And
Original Selection Of References Parallel And Illustrative Passages, Exhibited In A Manner Hitherto Unattempted
Publisher: London, Samuel Bagster
Read online: https://archive.org/details/bibliapolyglotta00lond/page/1268/

Do you know of any more parallel Bibles with the original Greek and the KJV/Authorized version? Let me know in the comments below.

Ben Kantor
KoineGreek.com
FREE (parts of NT)
Byzantine Text/Vaticanus

These recordings of the Greek New Testament are excellent, but unfortunately only the gospels of Mark and Luke are complete at the time of this writing. Hopefully the rest of the New Testament will follow soon! There are also a smattering of chapters from Acts, 1 Timothy, and even the LXX (Genesis 1).

Randall Buth
biblicallanguagecenter.com
PAID (parts of NT)
Westcott & Hort

Buth’s recording of the Gospel of John and 1-3 John are my favorite GNT recordings so far. Buth’s accent and pronunciation is extremely clear and easy to understand. (Here’s a page with sample recordings.) This recording is a bit slower as well, so it’s easier for beginner Greek students to follow along. Highly recommended! I only wish that he would make more CDs!

Α.Χ.Β. (π. Ραφαήλ)
vivlos.net & Youtube.com & Bible.is
FREE (entire OT & NT)
Ecumenical Patriarchal Text 1904

I just recently ran across the vivlos.net site, and was intrigued because it features both the Old and New Testaments in Greek in a modern pronunciation very similar to what I learned at Greek class! Unfortunately, they are encased in Adobe Flash which has been deprecated… The good news is that there is a NT recording available at YouTube.com (Majority Text)! Beware that this guy can read very fast!! You’ll need your speed-reading glasses to keep up with him. The 1904 Ecumenical Patriarchal Text is available to read along and listen at Bible.is in both Old and New Testaments. You can also download the audio for offline listening, (search for “Greek”, and fill out the form).

You can find a recording of the entire Septuagint (LXX) on YouTube from the “Orthodox Media Network” channel.

Good news! If you have the popular YouVersion Bible app on your phone, then you have free access to these recordings already! Just go the “Languages” option, and select “Ελληνιστική Κοινή”, then BYZ04 and start listening!

Theo Karvounakis
http://bit.ly/KoineGreekNT-mp3
FREE (entire NT)
Textus Receptus

I just recently heard of these recordings! His pronunciation is very close to π. Ραφαήλ’s (above) and either of these would be a good option in my opinion. If the π. Ραφαήλ’s recording above is too fast for you, then check this one out; he reads at a more “measured” pace. See also this YouTube playlist with the same audio where you can read along as you listen! If you want higher quality audio, check out the 160 kbs download here. The source for these files, as far as I can tell, is: https://christthetruth.net/2012/06/23/free-greek-audio-bible/

Peter Gilbert
bekkos.wordpress.com
FREE (entire NT)
Majority Text(?)

Yet another reading of the Greek New Testament with good pronunciation, and a very nice reading voice! (Sounds like a basically modern pronunciation to me). The reader makes it clear that this is not a professional/polished recording, but that they “are meant for my own use, and for my practice in reading the language aloud; if they prove helpful to anyone else, thanks be to God.” Unfortunately you’ll have to download the chapters one by one from his blog post.

John Simon
greeklatinaudio.com & helding.net (archive.org)
FREE (entire NT)
Westcott & Hort

The pronunciation in these recordings is a bit different; not quite reconstructed, and not quite modern. Just thought I’d give you one more option to check out if you haven’t found your favorite Greek voice yet!

Dr. Spiros Zodhiates
MP3 CD at Christianbook.com
PAID (entire NT)
Nestle-Aland 26th edition

I do not own this particular recording, but wanted to list it here for the sake of completeness. You can listen to a sample on the ChristianBook.com website (or here at archive.org) before you purchase. ISBN: 9780899571201

BONUS: Christophe Rico
polisjerusalem.org
FREE (parts of NT)

These recordings are technically Erasmian pronunciation, but still much better than most Englishized “Erasmian” pronunciations out there. Here’s a YouTube playlist with the same recordings.

For a much larger listing of Greek audio recordings (including lots of modern and Erasmian pronunciations) check out Louis Sorenson’s page archived from letsreadgreek.com

Hat tip to Daniel Streett and those who left comments on his blog post.
Featured photo by William Iven on Unsplash

Free Download

(Click on the image, then right-click on the resulting full-size image that loads and select “Save Image As” to save it to your hard drive).

Interestingly, many Greek NT manuscripts don’t include “all” of the Lord’s Prayer as we usually think of it. The last sentence, “ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. ἀμήν.” is missing from several important witnesses. (The NA28 lists them in the apparatus as: ℵ B D Z 0170 ƒ1 ℓ 2211 lat mae bo^pt; Or). I thought it would be interesting to track down a manuscript that does have it however, so I picked the first one from the list (K) that does include it, and looked it up online. The relevant part of the page is shown below.

As you can see, the whole thing is there. (With an interesting variant of “ἀφίεμεν” instead of “ἀφήκαμεν” as well!)

Here’s the Greek text in Unicode, as found in the 2018 Robinson-Pierpont Byzantine Text.

οὕτως οὖν προσεύχεσθε ὑμεῖς·
Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου· ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου· γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς· τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον· καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν, ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν· καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν, ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ. ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. ἀμήν.

(ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΘΘΑΙΟΝ 6:9-13)

Featured photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

The image above features Genesis Chapter 1 in Greek, and is taken from “BnF Coislin 1“, which is a 7th century Greek uncial manuscript.

Find out about the origins of “International Septuagint Day” here: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/ioscs/feb8/

To see one of the oldest surviving copies of a Greek manuscript, check out BP VI f.60 from the Chester Beatty collection!

Here’s what part of the description says:

The manuscript is the earliest dated book in the Biblical Papyrus collection and until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1947) was the earliest surviving copy of any portion of the Bible. Dated to the second century, it remains among the earliest surviving biblical manuscripts in codex form.

https://viewer.cbl.ie/viewer/object/BP_VI_f_60/1/

Note: The featured image at the top of the page is from the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus, and shows the first chapter of Esther (LXX).