Big (literally or figuratively, in a very wide application)
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μέγας (megas) is the standard Greek adjective for great, large, or mighty. The local NT index currently counts about 240 occurrences of G3173, covering a wide range of greatness: spatial size, intensity, importance, rank, and divine majesty.
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Full entry for μέγας (G3173) · Open the biblical lexicon
μέγας (megas) is the standard Greek adjective for great, large, or mighty. The local NT index currently counts about 240 occurrences of G3173, covering a wide range of greatness: spatial size, intensity, importance, rank, and divine majesty.
The BSB source-word alignment has 243 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include great (70), a great (26), vvv (19), greater (15), a loud (12).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 2:10. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (80), Luke (33), Acts (31), Matthew (30).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
μέγας (megas) is the standard Greek adjective for great, large, or mighty. The local NT index currently counts about 240 occurrences of G3173, covering a wide range of greatness: spatial size, intensity, importance, rank, and divine majesty. The word is ordinary in Greek — the same word used for a large fish or a great crowd — but the NT puts it to specific theological work, particularly in Revelation where megas and its cognates saturate the heavenly throne room. The theological question megas often raises is: great in comparison to what? Across key NT contexts, God and Christ define greatness beyond human comparison.
Revelation 19:1-6 is the NT's most concentrated use of megas to express divine majesty: the great multitude (ochlos polys) crying 'Hallelujah!' with a 'great voice' (phone megale), followed by 'Mighty is the Lord our God' (megaleia theou). The word appears repeatedly in the heavenly praise sections of Revelation to mark heightened divine and eschatological scale. The 'great day of his wrath' (Rev 6:17), the 'great tribulation' (Rev 7:14), the 'great trumpet' (Mat 24:31) — megas marks the large-scale events of the last days.
Luke 1:32 and 1:49 apply megas directly to Jesus and to God at the Annunciation: 'He will be great (megas), and will be called the Son of the Most High' (1:32); and Mary's Magnificat: 'for he who is mighty (ho dynatos) has done great (megala) things for me, and holy is his name' (1:49). The megas of Christ is not greatness in the same category as Caesar's greatness — it is greatness of a different order, the greatness that Mary recognizes by comparing what God has done for her with what the proud and powerful have done for themselves (1:51-53).
Matthew 22:36-38 uses megas for the commandment: 'Teacher, which is the great (megale) commandment in the Law?' Jesus identifies the love commandment as the 'great and first commandment' (megale kai prote entole). The greatness of this commandment is not its difficulty but its comprehensiveness — it summarizes all the others. The megas commandment is the one on which the other commandments hang.
For the preacher, μέγας (megas) is the word that insists there is a scale of greatness that relativizes human categories of great, and that scale is God's. The preacher who handles megas faithfully will calibrate the congregation's imagination by what is genuinely and permanently great.
The local NT index currently counts about 240 occurrences for G3173, making it one of the frequently used adjectives. Its distribution is heaviest in Revelation, where it appears frequently, where it marks the large-scale events and praise of the last days. The Gospels use it for Jesus' greatness and the great commandment. Acts uses it for significant events (great joy, great persecution, great famine).
The epistles use it more sparingly. Revelation's concentration of megas gives the word its most intense theological usage.
After this I heard a sound like the roar of a great multitude in heaven, shouting: “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God!
The heavenly praise scene with megas (great) marking the scale: a great multitude (ochlos polys) with a great voice (phone megale). The hallelujah chorus of Revelation 19 is the heavenly response to the judgment of Babylon — the great harlot (Rev 17:1) is overthrown by the great God. The megas-ness of the praise matches the megas-ness of what God has accomplished. The preacher can use this as a calibration point: if this is the scale of the heavenly response, what scale of God's greatness are we working from?
He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,
Gabriel's announcement of the megas of Jesus: he will be great (megas), Son of the Most High, heir of David's throne. The megas of Jesus is not described by comparison with human greatness but by the title Son of the Most High — greatness derived from and displayed through divine relationship. Contrast with Matthew 11:11 where Jesus calls John the Baptist the greatest (meizon) born among women, and then says the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater (meizon) — the kingdom defines a different scale of greatness entirely.
This is the first and greatest commandment.
The megale entole (great commandment): not great in the sense of hardest or most demanding but great in the sense of foundational and comprehensive. Jesus identifies two great commandments that summarize all the Law and the Prophets (v. 40). The greatness is structural — everything else hangs from these two. This use of megas shows that greatness in the kingdom is not about scale or intensity but about comprehensiveness and centrality: the thing that underlies everything else.
“Sir,” I answered, “you know.” So he replied, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
The megas thlipsis (great tribulation): the supreme-scale suffering that the white-robed multitude has passed through. Their robes are white not because they avoided suffering but because they came through it — washed in the Lamb's blood. The greatness of the suffering is answered by the greatness of the redemption: the great crowd (Rev 7:9) who came out of great tribulation are the ones who now stand before the throne. The megas of God's salvation exceeds the megas of human suffering.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid! For behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people:
The megas joy (charan megalen) of the angels' announcement: the scale of the good news is joy on the largest possible register. The announcement is 'to all the people' — the joy is as wide as the ethnos (the shepherd's audience) and the people (Israel). The birth of Christ is news of megas chara because it is the arrival of the Savior (soter), the Christ (Christos), the Lord (Kyrios) — three titles that together indicate the one whose greatness must be read through the full Lukan and canonical witness.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Describes size, intensity, rank, or importance—applies broadly across physical, moral, and spiritual dimensions
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 242 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
large, great
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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 10 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 240 lexical occurrence verses.
μέγας is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
μέγας (megas) does its theological work by calibrating the congregation's scale of reference. Revelation's saturation with megas — great multitudes, great voices, great day of wrath, great battle, great white throne — is a deliberate attempt to overwhelm the imagination with a sense of what is genuinely great. The NT's persistent use of megas for divine and eschatological realities is a counter-formation to the small, immediate greatnesses that consume human attention: the great career, the great crisis, the great problem.
The preacher's work with megas is to keep adjusting the scale: what looks megas in the current moment looks different when measured against the megas of God's salvation, the megas of the coming day, and the megas joy that the angels announced at Bethlehem. Matthew 22:38's 'great commandment' is a useful corrective to the same distortion: greatness in the kingdom is not measured by intensity or difficulty but by comprehensiveness — the thing that underlies everything else.
The great commandment is great because all the other commandments hang from it, not because it is the hardest to obey.
Rev.19.1
μέγας (megas) has two forms in the masculine/neuter: megas/mega; the feminine is megale. The cognate verb is megaluno (to magnify, G3170), used in the Magnificat (Lk 1:46 — 'my soul magnifies the Lord'). The abstract noun megethos (greatness, G3174) appears in Ephesians 1:19 ('the immeasurable greatness of his power'). The superlative form megistos (greatest) appears in 2 Peter 1:4 ('great and precious promises').
The comparative meizon (greater) is especially theologically significant in John's Gospel: 'the Father is greater (meizon) than I' (Jhn 14:28); 'greater (meizon) is he who is in you than he who is in the world' (1 Jhn 4:4). English 'megaton,' 'megalith,' and the prefix 'mega-' all derive from megas.
The OT antecedent is the frequent Hebrew adjective gadol (great, H1419). The 'great and awesome God' (gadol weynora El) is a standard OT description of the Lord's character (Neh 1:5; Dan 9:4; Ps 47:2). The 'great day of the Lord' (yom YHWH hagadol) appears in Joel 2:11 and Zephaniah 1:14 — the eschatological day of divine intervention that is both terrifying and salvific.
The NT's megas hemera (great day, Rev 6:17; 16:14) directly inherits this OT formula. The Hallel psalms (Ps 113-118) and the praise psalms (Ps 145-150) use gadol extensively for God's greatness — these are the psalms most echoed in Revelation's heavenly praise scenes. Mary's Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55) is modeled on Hannah's song (1 Sam 2:1-10) and draws on the same OT pattern: the great God humbles the mighty and exalts the humble.
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