Jesus's Top Ten Verbs

This article is a follow-up to the earlier one on Jesus’s top five Greek nouns. We have increased the number to ten here because many of these verbs are common in all languages, but other verbs in this list do tell us what actions Jesus talked about and their difference from our normal focus and the focus of today’s Christianity. Jesus used at least four hundred and twenty-seven different verbs in just over nineteen hundred verses. Forty-eight of these verbs appear in only a single verse. The most popular verb appears in over six-hundred verses. He uses each of these ten verbs, the top ten, in about a hundred verses.

Most of the common verbs in Jesus’s Greek are also common verbs in English. We must note, however, that the English top three verbs, “to be,” “to have,” and “to do,” are often used as helping verbs to form the different tenses, voices, etc. of other verbs. Greek does not have helping verbs so the use of these words isn’t as common. The work we do with helping verbs iin English is performed in the Greek by word endings.

The Top Five

The most common verb used by Jesus is, of course, the verb “to be,” eimi (ἐστίν), which is used to equate nouns or to assign them adjectives. It is used in 614 verses. The Greek verb is different than our verb “to be” because also it means “to exists” and “is possible.”

The second most common verb is a little surprising. It is the verb that means “to speak,” “to say, and “to explain.” The Greek word is lego (λέγω). This verb also means “to pick up,” which gives it the sense of continuing a conversation, and “to lay,” which gives it a sense of laying down words. It is used in two hundred and sixty-four verses. This verb is number four in English, after the helping verbs, “have” and “do.” There is another verb on this list that also is translated on “to say” and “to speak,” and another verb not on this list that has a similar meaning. It is is the twenty-ninth most common verb for Jesus. So “speaking” and “saying is by far the most common topic for Jesus, but more so that “doing.” The second most common verb in English is “to have.”

The third verb is even more of a surprise. It is “come,” erchomai, (ἔρχονται) which appears in a hundred and ninety-eight verses. It primarily means "to start out" but Jesus usually uses it to mean "come." It indicates movement, especially its beginning, without indicating a direction toward or away from anything. So, it means both “come” and “go.” Our English word "show up" captures both the "start" and "come" ideas. See this article for more.

The fourth most common Greek verb is “to have,” echo, (ἔχει) used in a hundred and eighty-one verses. It also has a broader meaning than our English word, “it means“to hold," "to possess," "to keep," "to have charge of," "to have due to one," "to maintain," "to hold fast," "to hold in," "to bear," "to carry," "to keep close," "to keep safe," and "to have means to do." In some tenses, it can mean "acquire," or "get." The main sense when it has an object is "to have" or "to hold." It is used in a hundred and eighty-one verses.

Jesus’s fifth most common Greek verb is poieo, (ποιεῖ), which English Bibles almost always translates as “to do”, but this is confusing because of our use of “to do” as an English helping verb. This verb also has more of a sense of productive action rather than simply acting. it means "to make," "to produce," "to create," "to bring into existence," "to bring about," "to cause," "to perform," "to render," "to consider," "to prepare," "to make ready," and, finally, "to do." It is used in a hundred and sixty-eight verses. The object is what is made or performed. This is very different from the English where the object only is what is done. Because the English word “do” is used as a helping verb it is number three on our list. The number five verb in English is “to go,” a word that is much less common in Jesus’s Greek.

The Next Five

Number six is “to see” from eido (ἰδεῖν). It means "to see," "to examine," "to perceive," "to behold," "to know how to do," "to see with the mind's eye," and "to know." It means “to know” when it appears in the past perfect form, “have seen.” So what we know is what we have seen with our eyes or in our mind. This is different than the Greekthe v erb that means “to know” from study. This verb appears in a hundred and six-eight verses. The number eleven verb in English is “to get.” See this earlier article.

The seventh most common verb is the other common word Jesus uses that means “to speak” and “to say.” The Greek word is eipon, (εἴπῃ), which means "to speak," "to say," "to recite," "to address," "to mention," "to name," "to proclaim," "to plead," "to promise," and "to offer."  This verb appears in a hundred and sixty-two verses.

Jesus’s number eight verb is “to give, didomi, (δοθήσεται). It means "to give," "to grant," "to hand over," "appoint," "establish," and "to describe." It is used in a hundred and forty-seven verses. This word is the seventeenth most common word in English.

The ninth most common verb for Jesus is ginomai, (γενηθήτω), which means "to become," "to come into being," "to happen," of things "to be produced," of events "happen," (passive) "take place," "come to pass," "to be engaged in," math "to be multiplied into," "become one of," "turn into." It means changing into a new state of being. This verb also has a number of special meanings with different prepositions. It is the complementary opposite of the verb "to be" (eimi) which indicates existence in the same state, but, perversely, it is frequently mistranslated in the English Bible as “be,” especially in past tenses because what things “have become’ is what they “are”, however, that misses the whole point of this verb. It is used in a hundred and seventeen verses. “Become” is the twenty-fifth most common word in English.

At number ten, we have " is akouo (ἀκούετε), which means "hear of," "hear tell of," "what one actually hears," "know by hearsay," "listen to," "give ear to," "hear and understand," and "understand." It is used in ninety-five verses. This word is the thirty-eighth most common word in English.

Some Observations

Can we deduce anything about Jesus’s core message from this list? The words he used that are much more common than their use in English, such as “speak,” come,” “become,” “give,” and “hear.” The word “do” is also very common, especially since it isn’t used, as in English, as a helping verb. Notice how focused this is on action of communication, growing, and interaction with each other.

We must also notice that there are no terms that we consider religious on this list, not even a word for “love.” There is not “believe",” which was made the center of Christianity with the Reformation. And there is no “obey,” which was a central message of the Old Testament.