Vigor ("great") (literally or figuratively)
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G2904, krátos, is a Greek noun for strength, effective might, prevailing power, or dominion. The New Testament uses it when power is displayed in a mighty act, made effective in a result, confessed as enduring rule, or attributed to God and the Lamb in praise.
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Full entry for κράτος (G2904) · Open the biblical lexicon
G2904, krátos, is a Greek noun for strength, effective might, prevailing power, or dominion. The New Testament uses it when power is displayed in a mighty act, made effective in a result, confessed as enduring rule, or attributed to God and the Lamb in praise.
The BSB source-word alignment has 12 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include power (5), dominion (2), might (1), mighty (1), mighty deeds (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 1:51. Its strongest book concentrations include 1 Peter (2), Ephesians (2), Revelation (2), 1 Timothy (1).
G2904, krátos, is a Greek noun for strength, effective might, prevailing power, or dominion. The New Testament uses it when power is displayed in a mighty act, made effective in a result, confessed as enduring rule, or attributed to God and the Lamb in praise. Mary sings that God has acted with might through His arm. Acts describes the Lord's word spreading and prevailing. Paul joins krátos with other power terms to speak of God's strength working in Christ's resurrection and supplying believers for faithful endurance. The word is not a secret technical formula, and its meaning must be read through each sentence and its neighboring terms.
The passages place divine might in movements the church might overlook. Ephesians directs attention to the power that raised and exalted Christ, then commands believers to receive strength in the Lord as they put on God's armor of truth, righteousness, gospel readiness, faith, salvation, and the word. Colossians connects glorious might with endurance, patience, and joy rather than with spectacle or personal dominance. First Peter places service inside dependence on what God supplies and then gives glory and power to Jesus Christ. These uses make effective might neither human self-assertion nor spiritual performance. God's power sustains holy perseverance and redirects honor to its giver.
Hebrews also uses krátos for the devil's power of death, but the verse announces that the incarnate Son destroys the one wielding it through His own death. This is real hostile power, not independent sovereignty or an equal opposite to God. Doxologies in the Pastoral Epistles, Peter, Jude, and Revelation ascribe everlasting dominion to God and to the Lamb. Pastoral teaching should therefore distinguish power possessed, power exercised, authority granted, and dominion praised without claiming sharper lexical walls than the texts support. The central Christian confession is not that believers become impressive. It is that God's effective might is known in the risen Christ, defeats the tyrant through the cross, preserves saints in patient faithfulness, advances the word, and belongs forever to God.
G2904 names God's mighty action, the word prevailing, resurrection power at work, strength for endurance, the defeated power of death's tyrant, and dominion returned to God and Christ in doxology.
He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
Mary praises power already displayed in God's covenant action. The mighty deed overturns pride and prepares for the reversals named throughout her song.
So the word of the Lord powerfully continued to spread and prevail.
After public renunciation of costly magic practices, Luke summarizes the Lord's word as prevailing. The triumph belongs to the word, not to apostolic showmanship.
And the surpassing greatness of His power to us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of His mighty strength,
Paul accumulates power language and immediately identifies its decisive action in Christ's resurrection and exaltation. The phrase points to enacted divine might, not a vocabulary code.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
The command locates strength in the Lord before the armor is named. The following imperatives require received provision, truthful resistance, prayer, and steadfastness rather than bravado.
Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have full endurance and patience, and joyfully
Glorious might reaches its stated pastoral outcome in endurance and patience with joy. The verse resists measuring divine power only by dramatic escape or visible success.
Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,
The Son truly shares human flesh and blood, then breaks the devil's death-wielding power through death. Hostile might is real but conquered, not ultimate.
If anyone speaks, he should speak as one conveying the words of God. If anyone serves, he should serve with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.
Gifted speech and service depend on God's provision and terminate in praise. Krátos belongs in the doxology to Christ, not in the servant's claim to importance.
To the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all time, and now, and for all eternity. Amen.
Jude closes his assurance of God's preserving work by confessing eternal dominion through Jesus Christ. Praise locates power before, within, and beyond the church's troubled present.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. vigor ("great") (literally or figuratively)
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
12 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
dominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read versedominion, strength, power
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
κράτος is a primary word - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G2904 presents power as effective might whose character is disclosed by its action and its end. In Luke, God's arm scatters pride. In Acts, the Lord's word prevails as people renounce practices that once held them. In Ephesians, God's mighty strength is measured by the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, then becomes the source from which believers stand in truth, righteousness, faith, prayer, and gospel readiness.
In Colossians, glorious might produces patient endurance with joy. Hebrews takes the reader into the incarnation and cross, where the Son defeats the death-wielding tyrant by dying. Peter places ministry inside strength God supplies and closes by ascribing power to Christ. Jude stretches the doxology across all time. These passages deny both triumphalism and despair.
Divine might is not proved by a leader's forcefulness, a ministry's visibility, or a believer's immunity from weakness. It is displayed in the risen and exalted Christ, in the cross-shaped defeat of evil, in the word's advance, in sustained obedience, and in praise that refuses to keep glory for the servant.
Eph.1.19
G2904 is a neuter noun whose forms appear in all four major cases across the 12 governed New Testament verses. English translations render it mighty deed, powerfully, strength, mighty power, might, power, or dominion. Paul sometimes places it beside G1411 dynamis and G2479 ischys, which intensifies the description of divine power but does not create a fixed three-stage technical system. The exact G2904 root remains distinct from phrase artifacts that pair it with G2479 or G1391.
The Old Testament praises the Lord's strong arm, saving acts, and enduring dominion while warning that creaturely might cannot rival Him. The New Testament identifies God's decisive mighty work in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, and it announces that the incarnate Son defeats the one wielding death's power through the cross. Doxologies to God and the Lamb carry that confession toward final worship.
This canonical arc does not make every Hebrew strength term an exact lexical equivalent of G2904; it traces the shared theological testimony supplied by the passages.