The Use And Misuse Of Concordances

Context is all

The Bible was written “for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom 15:4), but we should not make the mistake that the Bible was written to us. It was written for us and the distinction is important because one of the main elements of Bible study is to ascertain what it meant to the original audience. Only then can we apply the lessons to ourselves. In order to facilitate determining the original message various tools are at our disposal including concordances and lexicons, which are useful for understanding the use and meaning of words in Scripture. Scripture was not written in 21st Century English or even of course English at all, so the words employed in the Bible need to be understood within their original historical context. That’s where a concordance and lexicon can prove useful.

However a big mistake Bible students can make is failing to read the Bible in context, especially when it comes to the study of words. Contextual Bible study is the biggest key to good exposition and without it, well, not only do you miss the intended message, you can almost make it say anything you want. This is especially the danger when taking single words out of context. In fact most words have little meaning unless placed within a context. Even nouns like “bear” (meaning the furry animal) could mean a number of things without understanding the context. Does it refer to the animal itself or what the animal might represent? For instance saying, “The bear is eating a salmon.” Is quite different from saying, “That exam was a bear!” Even though both might refer to the animal as far as the original etymology of the word is concerned, one use of the word refers to a literal bear, whereas in the other example the word “bear” has morphed into a completely different meaning. We would never read the second of those two sentences as someone saying their exam literally was a bear, but when approaching the Biblical text many Bible students do make this sort of mistake.

Words, then, only have meaning with their Biblical, historical, cultural and linguistic context. A word on its own is ambiguous and only takes on meaning when it forms part of a sentence, and understanding the use of the word within that sentence can mean different things to different people in different times. For instance, the word “grace” means one thing to an average 21st century audience, but the word meant something different to its original audience in Bible times. We need to find out what it meant originally in order to learn the application of its meaning to ourselves.

Concordances

With these things in mind what sort of tools are available for concordance and lexicon work? The most commonly-used concordance is of course Strong’s, and also much use has been made of Young’s, Englishman’s and to a lesser extent Cruden’s. With the advent of computer and online Bibles the use of hard copy concordances is becoming obsolete, but the heritage of Strong’s is found in most electronic Bible study resources and this article concentrates on the use, and misuse, of Strong’s and Englishman’s, the combined use of which is mimicked a lot of times in electronic Bible word and phrase searches.

To do a simple concordance search, for instance if you’re looking for a verse or list of verses with a particular word or phrase as translated into English, it is a simple matter of typing in the word or phrase and hitting the button. In a flash, when performing this search on a computer, you are presented with a list of verses, but herein lies the first danger of using a concordance. Just because a word is used in a number of places doesn’t necessarily mean that those passages are connected together. They might be, especially if you find the same phrase in different passages, but don’t assume, just because similar words are used, that you can do Bible study simply by stringing together a list of verses which uses the same word. A more accurate way of searching for a word is to look it up using the Hebrew or Greek original rather than an English word. You can do this in computer software usually by typing in the Strong’s number. What you are presented with is what Englishman’s would present you with if you were to use that concordance on its own; a list of occurrences of a Hebrew or Greek word. But again the Bible student should not assume that passages are linked simply because the same original word is used.

One of the keys to Bible study is letting your study lead you to conclusions rather than reading things into the text. The former is called exegesis (reading out of the text) and the other is called eisegesis (reading into the text). Unfortunately eisegesis is extremely easy to perform when doing word studies. We tend to like finding patterns and connections and the temptation is, when finding two or more verses that use the same Hebrew or Greek word, to make up connections when none really exists. This can especially be the case with unusual words only used a handful of times. We might assume that every occurrence of the word is connected together and we can, if we don’t perform contextual Bible study, force connections and end up making up a Bible study point that wasn’t part of the text’s intended meaning. If the connection is not truly contextually there, we are not finding out what God is communicating to us but what we have invented for ourselves.

Having said that there is nothing wrong with noting down where a word occurs. If you do this real patterns can emerge as you go through the passage you’re studying. For instance, you might find that a particular word in the passage you’re looking at is used in another book of the Bible. Note it down but don’t assume anything yet. Later on in your study let’s say you find other words that are used in both of these passages and you soon realize that they both use similar language. Now it’s time to compare the contexts to see if they mesh together. For instance, the book of Malachi uses the word translated “healing” in 4:2. From doing a concordance search we find the exact same word is used in 2 Chron 36:16. Does this mean something? Not necessarily. But upon further study we find out that it’s not the only word shared by the two contexts, and also the two contexts match as far as the general message of the texts. Then by looking at the contexts we find one refers to the generation that went into captivity and the other the generation that fell away after returning from captivity. A conclusion we might reach from this connection is that Malachi is telling the people of his day they are no better than those who went into captivity in the first place. Contextual study needs to be the overarching principle in our Bible study and word connections need to be governed by it.

For another example consider the word translated “rib” in the passage about the creation of Eve. When doing a concordance search on this word we find out that nearly every other occurrence refers to the “ribs” or “sides” of the tabernacle, Solomon’s temple and the temple of Ezekiel’s prophecy. Looking at the context of Eve’s creation we also find out that the word “made” in Gen 2:22 is the word used for the building of a house. So we might come to the conclusion that Eve represents, in some way, the house of God. And we would be correct because that’s a theme taken up in places like the epistle to the Ephesians where the body of Christ is also described as a temple. So the use of the word “rib” when it comes to Eve is interesting. However not all occurrences of the word are to do with the house of God. There are a few other times the word is used and the danger is, having found out this original interesting link with the house of God, we look for connections in the other passages. If we can’t find something obvious the temptation is to force a connection. Again, we must always be led to conclusions and not force them.

Strong’s word definitions

Perhaps the biggest danger of Strong’s concordance, however, is the use of the word definitions that accompany the concordance itself. Each word in Strong’s has an associated number and the number stands for a particular Hebrew or Greek word. In Bible talks we often hear the speaker talking about this or that “Strong’s number” when referring to a word in text. However there are two things we need to remember about the word definitions in Strong’s, definitions that have found themselves in most computer software.

Firstly Strong’s is not a really a lexicon or dictionary. Rather the definitions Strong’s gives, in the main, are a very brief definition followed by how the word is translated in the passages it is found. For instance:

6113 עָצָר ‘âtsâr, aw-tsar’; a primitive root; to inclose; by analogy, to hold back; also to maintain, rule, assemble:—x be able, close up, detain, fast, keep (self close, still), prevail, recover, refrain, x reign, restrain, retain, shut (up), slack, stay, stop, withhold (self).

One problem with this very brief definition is that it is, in itself, open to interpretation. A good lexicon will provide more details beyond the lemma (root word) but Strong’s doesn’t go beneath the surface and is really just a glossary. Also, what are we to do with this information? Strong’s gives several different meanings of this word: maintain, rule, assemble for instance, and the word is translated in a number of different ways, including recover and reign. There are several logical fallacies often committed in relation to the use of Strong’s definitions:

Illegitimate Totality Transfer — where all the various meanings of a word are forced into a passage without regard to context. So we might find a passage using Strong’s #6113 and say that the word means all of the above — rule, assemble etc. This is to read a text without regard to context and without considering the nuance of the word that best fits that context.

Selective Use of Meaning — this is illegitimate totality transfer in reverse where the Bible student selects from the range of meanings the one he or she likes best. Again this is to disregard the context and is a form of eisegesis that seems more legitimate because you’ve looked up the meaning of a word in a concordance.

The other main logical fallacy committed when using Strong’s definitions is called the root word fallacy or the etymological root fallacy. Often in Strong’s concordance you will get a definition like this:

6114 xֶi ‘etser, eh’-tser; from 6113; restraint:— magistrate.

The word “from” denotes that this particular word has a root (the word used in the previous example), and most words, unless they are what is called a “primitive root” have root words associated with them. Again in Bible talks you’ve probably heard a speaker say something like “and the root of this word is Strong’s number such-and-such” and some sort of conclusion is drawn. However, while root words can be meaningful there is a very great danger of taking things completely out of context with root words and once more inventing a Bible point where none exists. It’s easier to understand the root word fallacy from an example in the English language. Take the word “butterfly” which is made up of two words “butter” and “fly” so we can say that the word comes from two root words joined together. However whereas the word “fly” might have some meaning in this context the word “butter” is entirely meaningless and to try and say this insect has anything to do with dairy products is ridiculous. But Bible students are guilty very often of doing such things with Bible words.

Ecclesia

One of the most common examples of the root word fallacy among Christadelphians is from considering the word ecclesia. Here is Strong’s definition:

EKKX71CFi(X ekklesía, ek-klay-see’-ah; from a compound of G1537 and a derivative of G2564; a calling out, i.e. (concretely) a popular meeting, especially a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both):—assembly, church.

Notice Strong’s gives two roots – Strong’s numbers 1537 and 2564 which mean “out of” and “to call” respectively. So it is that some would say that the word ecclesia means “called out ones” as if it is a word that specifically means a group of people called out and separated from the world. But that’s not what the word actually means. What it actually means is this:

1711 &KX71cria, (ekklesia), : n.fem.; DBLHebr 7736; Str 1577; TDNT13.501—1. LN 11.32 congregation, an individual assembly of Christians (or OT believers Ac 7:38; Heb 2:12), usually with leaders who conform to a standard, and have worship practices, with members interacting, more or less local (Mt 18:17; 1 Ti 3:5; 1 Co 11:16–22; Jas 5:14; Rev 1:4; 1 Pe 5:13 v.r.); 2. LN 11.33 church, the totality of all congregations of Christians at all times (Mt 16:18); 3. LN 11.78 assembly, gathering of persons for a purpose, even riotous (Ac 19:32, 39, 40)2

The word means “congregation”, “church” or “assembly” as any good lexicon will tell you. The word means no more “called out ones” than butterfly means “a fly made out of butter”.

Classification of Hebrew words

Another problem with Strong’s definitions is that they ignore the binyan of a Hebrew verb. A binyan, of which there are seven in Hebrew, is a way in which a Hebrew root word is classified. Consider Strong’s number 6113 (atsar) that we looked at above but this time in another lexicon:

6806 עָצַר (‘a sar): v.; Str 6113; TWOT31675—1. LN 68.34–68.57 (qal) hold back, restrain, stop, i.e., have a state or condition cease (Ge 16:2; 1Ki 18:44; 2Ki 4:24; 2 Ch 14:10[EB 11]; Job 4:2; 12:15; 29:9+); (nif) stopped (Nu 17:13[EB 16:48],15[EB 16:50]; 25:8; 2 Sa 24:21, 25; 1 Ch 21:22; Ps 106:30+); 2. LN 87.76–87.86 (qal pass.) be enslaved, be constrained, i.e., be made personal property or force into indentured service (Dt 32:36; 1 Ki 14:10; 21:21; 2Ki 9:8; 14:26+); 3. LN 37.108–37.110 (qal) detain, i.e., impede the movement of a person, and so have one’s movement controlled (Jdg 13:15, 16; 1Ki 17:4+); (qal pass.) be kept from (1 Sa 21:6[EB 5]; 1Ch 12:1; Ne 6:10; Jer 33:1; 36:5; 39:15+); (nif) detained, in custody (1Sa 21:8[EB 7]+); 4. LN 79.114–79.117 (qal) shut up, i.e., close up an object so there can be no passage of a mass or collection (Ge 20:18; Dt 11:17; 2 Ch 7:13; Isa 66:9+); (qal pass.) be shut up (Jer 20:9+); (nif) be shut up (1Ki 8:35; 2Ch 6:26+); 5. LN 37.48–37.95 (qal) govern, formally, restrain, i.e., rule over a people with a focus that the rulership restrains and controls the behavior of the people (1 Sa 9:17+); 6. LN 74 (qal) be4

Notice how much more descriptive this entry is. Left to the Strong’s definition we could very easily be guilty of exegetical fallacies when selecting a meaning that we like. However a good lexicon will split a word up into its verb forms, or binyanim. Notice the words in parentheses like ‘qal’ and ‘nif’. Each one tells us the binyan of the verb, and often these definitions are very different while retaining a connection to the root. The qal, for example, also called the pa’al is the simplest form of the verb, while the nif (or niph’al) tells us that the word is in the passive voice. None of this is detailed in Strong’s.

For more information of the use and misuse of Strong’s concordance it is well worth taking a look at http://www.armchair-theology.net/bible-study/how-not­to-use-strongs-concordance/ and also meta.hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/ questions/923/strongs-is-a-concordance – not-a-lexicon. What most of us need to realize is that we are not Hebrew or Greek experts. We rely on the tools provided by others, such as Strong’s, but it is very easy to misuse these resources and come up with fanciful ideas simply because we can look up words in a concordance. We must always default to contextual Bible study as main method.

Another problem with Strong’s word definitions, which is also true of older lexicons like Thayer’s, is that very often those definitions are out-of-date. In fact when Strong’s and Thayer’s were first published Koine Greek (the Greek of the New Testament) was considered to be a strictly Biblical language. Not all New Testament vocabulary could be found in secular writings and so many meanings had to be figured out without any historical or cultural context. However after these works were published many secular writings were found that did in fact use the Greek words of the New Testament and later lexicons reflect these discoveries. As more linguistic research is done it is always best to try and find more up-to-date resources for our Bible study.

Remember that the list of definitions in Strong’s concordance is a glossary, not a lexicon, and only provides brief definitions of the lemma (root word). To get a proper idea what the actual occurrence of a word means it is wise to find a modern lexicon such as Louw-Nida or Swanson. However sometimes these lexicons are not as accessible as the Strong’s and Thayer’s, both of which are extremely cheap to buy and often free in Bible software. So if you do use Strong’s use it with care and don’t let it lead you down the path of eisegesis. And remember that those who translated the Bible for us into English have done the spade work for us. Getting a good modern translation, or range of translations, is often better, and has fewer pitfalls, than using a concordance or lexicon. In particular it is worthwhile obtaining a copy of the New English Translation (The NET Bible). This version of the Bible can be termed a transparent translation since the team who put it together included thousands of footnotes that explain why a particular word has been translated a certain way with copious references to the lexicons and other tools that they used.

  1. TNDT 3-501 refers to “The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament” by Kittel et al: 3:501 refers to volume 3, p 501.
  2. Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
  3. TWOT 1675 refers to “The Theological Word Book of the Old Testament” by Harris et al.
  4. Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.