Language Appreciation — Unit 10: Strong's Numbers — The Bridge to Every Hebrew and Greek Word

In 1863, the year Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and Lee invaded Pennsylvania, a forty-one-year-old Methodist professor of Hebrew and Greek at Drew Theological Seminary in New Jersey began a project so vast that his colleagues thought he had lost his senses. His name was James Strong. His project was to take every single word of the English King James Bible — every the, every and, every God, every love, every righteousness, every kyrios and every dikaiosynê — and trace it back to the exact Hebrew or Greek word behind it, then assign each Hebrew word and each Greek word a unique number that any English-only reader could use. He wanted to put the original languages in the hand of the plowboy.

It took him twenty-seven years. He worked nights and weekends while teaching full-time at Drew. He recruited over a hundred volunteer assistants. He cross-checked every entry against multiple ancient manuscripts. When Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible finally went to press in 1890, it was the size of a city telephone directory. It listed every English word in the KJV in alphabetical order, every verse where that word appeared, and beside each verse the unique number that pointed to the Hebrew or Greek word underneath. The Hebrew side ran from H1 (av, "father") to H8674. The Greek side ran from G1 (Alpha) to G5624. In the back of the book were two dictionaries — a Hebrew lexicon and a Greek lexicon — arranged numerically. Any English-speaking believer could now look up a verse, see the Strong's number beside the word, flip to the back, and read what the Hebrew or Greek actually meant. The seminary had been moved into the hand of the layman.

For 1,800 years the Hebrew and Greek originals had been locked behind seminary walls. In 1890 a Methodist professor handed the key to anyone who would pick it up.

The Wycliffe-Tyndale tradition

Strong did not invent democratizing Scripture. He stood on a long line. John Wycliffe in the 1380s translated the whole Bible into Middle English so that every English peasant could read it. William Tyndale in the 1520s did the same for early modern English — and was strangled and burned for his trouble at Vilvoorde in 1536. His dying prayer, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes," was answered within three years when Henry VIII authorized the Great Bible in 1539. Alexander Cruden in 1737 compiled the first great English concordance, working from a London garret, in and out of asylums for the rest of his eccentric life, but producing a tool that put every verse at the fingertips of every Bible reader. Strong's concordance of 1890 is the next step in that line. Each generation has chipped away at the wall between the ordinary Christian and the original Word of God. Strong's number system was the largest hammer of them all.

Why this unit matters

Units 1 through 9 gave you a map of the territory: why the original languages matter and the first ten Hebrew letters (Units 1–2), the rest of the Hebrew alphabet and six Hebrew words from Genesis 1 (Units 3–4), seven Hebrew word treasures from Isaiah 6 (Unit 5), the Greek alphabet (Units 6–7), and eight great Greek words for salvation (Units 8–9). You have seen what is possible. Unit 10 hands you the tool that lets you do this for yourself, for any word in any verse, for the rest of your life. By the end of this lesson you will know how to use Strong's numbers in three forms: on paper (the original concordance), on a phone (the modern apps), and on the full internet (Bible study websites). Unit 11 will then turn you loose on your first real word study. You are almost at the finish.

Our unit scripture is 2 Timothy 2:15. The English word "study" here translates the Greek spoudazô (Strong's G4704), which actually means "be diligent, give earnest effort." Paul is not telling Timothy to read more. He is telling Timothy to work hard at handling the Word. The phrase "rightly dividing" translates orthotomeô (Strong's G3718), "cut straight." Paul is telling Timothy to cut a straight line through Scripture like a stonemason cutting a stone or a tailor cutting cloth. Strong's numbers are the workman's tool. They do not make you a workman; they equip the workman you already want to be.

Imagine you have a hardcover copy of Strong's Exhaustive Concordance on your desk. (You will not have one in Mexico unless someone shipped it to you, but the structure is identical online and on your phone, so understanding the paper version teaches you how every digital tool works.) Open the concordance and you find three main parts:

Part	What it contains
Main concordance	Every English word in the KJV in alphabetical order. Under each word, every verse where it appears, with the Strong's number beside each occurrence.
Hebrew dictionary (back)	Numbers H1 through H8674. Each number is one Hebrew word, with a brief definition, etymology, and list of how the KJV translates it.
Greek dictionary (back)	Numbers G1 through G5624. Each number is one Greek word, with a brief definition, etymology, and list of how the KJV translates it.

The lookup process is four steps. Step one: find your verse in the main concordance under any meaningful word in it. Suppose you are studying John 3:16, "For God so loved the world …" Look up the word "loved." Step two: scan the list of every occurrence of "loved" in the KJV until you find John 3:16. Step three: note the Strong's number printed next to that occurrence. For "loved" in John 3:16 the number is G25. The "G" tells you Greek (NT); a "H" would tell you Hebrew (OT). Step four: flip to the Greek dictionary at the back, find entry G25, and read the lexical information: agapaô, the verb form of the noun agapê you learned in Unit 8. Self-giving sacrificial love. The same root that Christ used when He commanded us to love our enemies.

The whole process takes about ninety seconds once you know the rhythm. And the payoff is that you have just done what only seminary professors could do a hundred and fifty years ago. You have read John 3:16 in Greek without learning Greek grammar. Strong's number G25 was the bridge.

One warning, repeated

Strong's gives you a brief lexical entry — usually one or two sentences. It is a starting point, not the last word. Many serious Bible students go on to use larger lexicons like Thayer's (Greek) or Brown-Driver-Briggs (Hebrew). Both of these are keyed to Strong's numbers, so once you know how to find a Strong's number, you can look the same word up in any major lexicon. The number is the bridge. Once across the bridge, there is a whole library waiting.

Most students in our seminary will never own the paper concordance. You do not need to. The same content is in your pocket. Several free or low-cost mobile apps put Strong's numbers, full lexicons, and parallel Bible translations on your phone. Here are the four most reliable choices for an English-or-Spanish-speaking believer in Mexico in this decade:

App	Platforms	Cost	What it gives you
Blue Letter Bible	iOS, Android, web	Free	Tap any English word in any verse; the Strong's number, lexicon entry, every other verse using that Greek/Hebrew word, and audio Greek/Hebrew pronunciation appear instantly. Excellent and free.
e-Sword	Windows, Mac, iOS, Android	Free (core), some paid modules	Powerful desktop and mobile suite. Many free Strong's-keyed lexicons available as add-on modules. Strongest on Windows.
MySword (Android) / PocketSword (iOS)	Mobile only	Free	Light, fast, free. Strong's lookup built in. Many free modules for offline use, important when WiFi is spotty.
Logos Bible (mobile app)	iOS, Android, desktop	Free app; paid library	The professional-grade tool. The free app gives some Strong's; serious modules cost money. Suitable for pastors who want depth.

The workflow on a phone is even faster than paper. Open Blue Letter Bible. Type the verse reference (John 3:16). Tap the word "loved." A pop-up appears showing the Strong's number (G25), the Greek word (agapaô), the lexicon entry, the verse list, and a play button to hear it pronounced. Three taps, ten seconds, and you are inside the Greek. The man who took twenty-seven years to compile this in 1890 would have wept at how quickly his work now serves you.

Spanish-language note

Most of the Strong's-keyed tools are still in English first, Spanish second. The Reina-Valera 1960 keyed to Strong's numbers is available in both Blue Letter Bible and e-Sword. The Reina-Valera Gomez (RVG) does not yet have a fully Strong's-keyed module in every app, so when working in Spanish you may want to consult parallel English-Spanish texts. The Strong's numbers themselves are language-neutral — G25 is G25 whether you read Juan 3:16 or John 3:16.

When you sit at a real computer with a real web browser, you have access to tools more powerful than any printed concordance ever produced. The best of these are free and require no registration. Here are the four that every workman in the Word should bookmark today:

Site	URL	What it gives you
Blue Letter Bible	blueletterbible.org	Same content as the app, on the desktop. Hover over any word in any verse to get the Strong's number, Greek/Hebrew, lexicon entry, and links to every other use in Scripture.
Bible Hub	biblehub.com	Verse-by-verse interlinear with English, Greek, transliteration, Strong's, parsing, and parallel translations all on one screen. The single best free interlinear on the web.
StepBible	stepbible.org	From Tyndale House Cambridge. Beautiful interface. Strong's keyed. Excellent for Hebrew/Greek beginners.
BibleGateway w/ Strong's	biblegateway.com	Multiple translations side-by-side with Strong's overlay. Best for comparing how different versions handle the same Greek or Hebrew word.

For a Mexican student of Wayne's seminary, Blue Letter Bible and Bible Hub are the two essentials. Both are free, both work in Spanish-language browsers, both keep their data up to date, both pair with the underlying lexicons (Thayer's for Greek, Brown-Driver-Briggs for Hebrew). If you can use only one tool, use Blue Letter Bible. If you can use two, add Bible Hub for the interlinear view.

A worked example: Romans 1:17

Let us do live what Luther did in 1516. Open biblehub.com in your browser. Type "Romans 1:17" in the search box. Click "Interlinear." You see the entire verse displayed word by word: English on top, then the Greek word, then the transliteration, then the Strong's number, then the grammatical parsing. Find the English word "righteousness." Beneath it is the Greek dikaiosynê, transliteration "dikaiosunê," Strong's number G1343, parsing "noun, nominative, feminine, singular." Click the G1343 link. You jump to the lexicon entry, which gives Thayer's full discussion of the word. Read it. You have just done the Luther exercise. You have read Romans 1:17 in Greek, looked up the key word in the standard Greek lexicon, and understood why the verse means "the righteousness God GIVES" and not "the standard God demands." Five centuries after Luther, the same insight is one mouse click away.

Five centuries ago Luther had to be a Hebrew and Greek scholar to discover this. Today any English-speaking believer with a phone can replicate his discovery in thirty seconds.

A power tool in the hand of an untrained workman is dangerous. Strong's numbers in the hand of a careless student have produced thousands of sincere but wrong sermons over the past century. Before we set you loose on Unit 11, you need to know the three classic mistakes and how to avoid them. None of them are problems with Strong's itself. All of them are problems with how the workman uses the tool.

The Berean attitude (Acts 17:11)

When Paul preached at Berea, Luke records that the Bereans were "more noble … in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so." The Greek word for "searched" is anakrinô (Strong's G350), a courtroom verb meaning "to examine carefully, to investigate, to cross-examine." The Bereans loved Paul, but they did not take even his preaching at face value. They opened their Old Testament scrolls and checked his claims against the inspired text. This is the attitude that Strong's enables for every layperson. You no longer need to take any preacher's word for what the Greek says. You can anakrinô the claim. You can check it for yourself. Strong's numbers are the modern equivalent of the Berean's scroll.

Strong's makes every Christian a Berean. It hands the cross-examination tool to the layperson in the pew. A preacher who fears Strong's-equipped congregations is a preacher with something to hide.

You have now seen Strong's numbers in three forms. Paper for the historic foundation, phone for the daily workman, internet for the deep dive. All three contain the same essential content: every Hebrew and Greek word in the Bible keyed to a number, with a brief definition, and a list of every verse where the word appears. That single innovation — one number per word — broke down the wall between the seminary and the laity in 1890 and is still doing it in 2026.

What a complete Strong's word study looks like

Here is the workflow you will apply in Unit 11. Pick a verse. Pick a key word in that verse. Look up the Strong's number. Read the lexicon entry. Look up every other place the same Strong's number appears in Scripture. Read those other verses, noting how the same word is used in different contexts. Now go back to your original verse and reread it with all of that in your mind. You have just done a real word study. The whole process takes fifteen minutes in Blue Letter Bible. It used to take a seminary degree.

Step	What you do	Tool
1	Read your verse in your English (or Spanish) Bible. Pick a meaningful word.	Bible
2	Look up the Strong's number for that word.	Concordance / app / website
3	Read the lexicon entry (Strong's own + Thayer's or BDB if available).	Lexicon
4	Click "every occurrence" of that Strong's number. Scan the list.	Concordance / app
5	Read 5–10 of those verses. Note how context shapes the meaning each time.	Bible
6	Return to your original verse and reread it with the word's full range in mind.	Bible

Notebook activity

Before you take the examination, do this. Pick any verse from Romans 5 that contains a word you would like to understand more deeply. Open Blue Letter Bible (web or phone). Find the Strong's number. Read the lexicon. List every other occurrence of the same Strong's number in Romans (just Romans, not all of Scripture — we are keeping this short). Write three sentences in your notebook: (1) the word and its Strong's number, (2) the dictionary meaning, (3) how seeing the word's other uses changes or deepens your reading of your original verse. Save this. You will turn in a longer version like it as your Unit 11 word-study project.

What Unit 11 will require

Unit 11 is the capstone of the entire Language Appreciation course. You will choose one Greek word from the New Testament that has appeared somewhere in Units 5 through 9 (or another word approved by Wayne). You will use Strong's numbers and Blue Letter Bible to perform a full word study, write it up in approximately 800 words, and present your findings. You will trace the word's lexical meaning, its uses across the New Testament, any Old Testament Hebrew word it translates (if applicable), and how it shapes the doctrine of the passage in which you found it. The course you are nearly done with has prepared you to do this well. Unit 11 is where you prove you can use what you have been given. One unit left. You can see the finish line.