Strong 39;s Concordance Kjv App

[Vannessa Rataj]

TheStrong's Exhaustive Concordance is the most complete, easy-to-use, and understandable concordance for studying the original languages of the Bible. Combining the text of the King James Version and New American Standard Bibles with the power of the Greek and Hebrew Lexicons, any student or pastor can gain a clear understanding of the Word to enrich their study.

You can access Strong's Concordance by simply searching or browsing the King James Version or New American Standard Bible (use either the main search box above or the simplified one below). Once you've chosen a passage, tap or click the gear icon at the top right of the reading pan. It looks like this:

The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,[n 1] generally known as Strong's Concordance, is a Bible concordance, an index of every word in the King James Version (KJV), constructed under the direction of American theologian James Strong. Strong first published his Concordance in 1890, while professor of exegetical theology at Drew Theological Seminary.

Strong's Concordance provides an index to the Bible. This allows the reader to find words where they appear in the Bible. It also lets the reader directly compare how the same word may be used elsewhere in the Bible.

Each original-language word (Hebrew or Greek) is given an entry number in the dictionary of those original language words listed in the back of the concordance. These have become known as the "Strong's numbers". The main concordance lists each word that appears in the KJV Bible in alphabetical order with each verse in which it appears listed in order of its appearance in the Bible, with a snippet of the surrounding text (including the word in italics). Appearing to the right of the scripture reference is the Strong's number. This allows the user of the concordance to look up the meaning of the original language word in the associated dictionary in the back, thereby showing how the original language word was translated into the English word in the KJV Bible.

Due to Strong's numbers it became possible to translate concordances from one language into another. Thus, the Russian concordance of 30,000 words from the Russian Thompson Study Bible[2] is a translation of the English concordance from Thompson Chain-Reference Bible.[3] In the process of compiling the Russian concordance, the Hebrew/Greek word corresponding to the English concordance word was found, and then its Russian equivalent in the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible was added to the resulting Russian concordance text.

In the 1890 version, Strong added a "Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary" and a "Greek Dictionary of the New Testament" to his concordance. In the preface to both dictionaries, Strong explains that these are "brief and simple" dictionaries, not meant to replace reference to "a more copious and elaborate Lexicon." He mentions Gesenius and Frst as examples of the lexicons that Strong's is drawn from. His dictionaries were meant to give students a quick and simple way to look up words and have a general idea of their meaning.

The Strong's Concordance is a helpful tool that lists every Hebrew and Greek lemma (root word) present in the King James Bible. Along with listing these, the tool also generally gives a 'gloss' for each word (some tools actually link Strong's Concordance to lexicons such as Thayer's Greek-English lexicon). The tool is popular because it is free on many Bible-related websites. With that said, I'd like to give some advice (and caution) to users who rely on this tool for original languages research in the Biblical texts.

A lexicon gives an inventory of all of the lexemes in a given language; Strong's Concordance is based only on a specific English translation (the KJV). Hebrew-English, Aramaic-English, and Greek-English lexicons also function as dictionaries in that they define lexemes from the original language using English words that best capture their meaning, explaining any relevant grammatical features that impact their translation.

While Strong's Concordance gives a gloss for each lemma, this is not the main purpose of this tool and as such should not be used as a lexicon nor as a dictionary (a collection of glosses is rightly called a 'glossary'). Here are a few reasons why it is problematic to use Strong's Concordance as a lexicon:

Lexical ambiguity: Consider the following sentence: "She is looking for a match." Is the subject trying to light a candle or find a romantic partner? The 'gloss' definition here is ambiguous and gives us no help disambiguating the meaning in this context. Grammatical features should also be examined, which the Strong's Concordance offers no help with.1

Nuances of meaning: Sometimes there is more than one meaning listed for a term (this is often the case for prepositions, but there are also verbs that change meaning depending on their voice and other grammatical features). Strong's Concordance offers no help when determining which (if any) gloss is most appropriate in context. Often knowledge of the original languages is required to determine what grammatical and contextual features are present in order to determine the correct gloss (if any). Also, authors can use the same word differently in differing contexts (such as James' and Paul's usage of the word 'faith').

The meaning of a lexeme is that intended by the author using it. The Strong's Concordance often sheds little light on what this meaning is in context. Therefore, claiming the meaning of a specific word in a given context is X on the basis of the Strong's Concordance is not a reliable claim.

I often see folks try to determine the meaning of words in specific contexts using their root lemmata. The problem here is that etymology and the later meaning of a word are often orthogonal concepts. Here are some examples:

Several free online tools have linked Strong's Concordance entries to lexicon entries. Unfortunately, most of them use either Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon or Smith's Bible Dictionary for definitions, both of which were published prior to 1895. As I've cautioned about elsewhere, these resources are considered to be obsolete by scholars (and contain much inaccurate information).

The Strong's Concordance can be used effectively as an index of the occurrences of a lemma in the original languages of the Biblical texts (at least in those manuscripts used by the King James Bible, which is a limitation of this tool, although some later revisions of it have addressed this to some extent).

Strong's Concordance is a great tool for identifying other occurrences of a lemma by using it's number (as this does not require that you can actually read the alphabet of the original language). This makes an original languages concordance accessible to those who cannot read those languages.

The gloss definition given by the concordance (or even a definition given by an outdated lexicon) can be helpful here in giving a general understanding of the lemma's meaning, but this should not be used as the sole source to justify the meaning or definition of the word in a specific textual context. However, it can help you see how the word has been translated in its other occurrences, which can give you a broader understanding of its semantic range and how it is generally interpreted in similar contexts (using multiple English Bible translations will help catch differences and nuances of meaning, which can lead to good questions about the meaning of lemmata in specific contexts here on BH.SE, where someone versed in the original language can assist you in better understanding the passage). Pay close attention to differences in grammar, author, audience, genre, and historical setting as these can all influence the meaning of a lemma in a specific context.

Strong's Concordance is an index of occurrences of a lemma in the original language of the Biblical text, it is not a lexicon/dictionary (and thus is not a reliable source for the meaning of a lexeme in a specific context). However, this tool is a great resource for those who wish to better understand how a lemma has been understood by English Bible translators in its other occurrences, and Biblical study conducted using Strong's Concordance can provide the impetus for many good questions about the Biblical texts here where someone trained in the original language(s) can assist you further with understanding the meaning of a lexeme in a specific text of interest.

1 I took a course on the Bible during my undergraduate program where a classmate argued that the woman in Luke 8:43-44 had a sexually transmitted disease (STD) on the basis of the King James Version translation and corresponding Strong's Concordance gloss. The relevant text in the KJV translation reads, "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years ... Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched." She understood 'issue' to refer to a 'problem in' the woman's blood, rather than as (the correct understanding of the Greek text which is) 'the flowing or coming out' of blood from the woman's body, i.e. hemorrhaging (likely a medical condition related to menstruation).

"One of the beauties of the Hebrew language is that all of the roots of all verbs and nouns are derived from two-letter units that are usually assembled as part of a three letter root. ... These two-letter units are sub-roots, each sub-root being a gateway to meaning and understanding."

Another Rabbi said that if you didn't know the meaning of a word, that it could be discerned from the hieroglyphic nature of the square text. I am looking for that reference, it has been some time. However evidence of the use of the hieroglyphics is in both 1 John and the Gospel of Thomas. So etymological studies may very well be legitimate down to the individual letters.

This concordance can be used with any modern Bible translation. Though all words that are indexed and referenced are specifically for the King James Version, proper names include variant spellings so it can be used profitably with any translation, including the NIV, NASB, ESV, NRSV, and NKJV.

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