What does ῥομφαία (rhomphaía) mean in the Bible?
ῥομφαία (rhomphaía): Large broad sword; in NT used symbolically for divine judgment or piercing affliction of soul.
Greek · G4501
ῥομφαία
Sword
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ῥομφαία G4501
Pronunciation rhomphaía
What does ῥομφαία (rhomphaía) mean in the Bible?
ῥομφαία (rhomphaía): Large broad sword; in NT used symbolically for divine judgment or piercing affliction of soul.
Full entry for ῥομφαία (G4501) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G4501?
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sword (6), a sword (1).
Where does ῥομφαία (rhomphaía) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 2:35. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (6), Luke (1).
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders It sword 6× Revelation 1:16, Revelation 2:12, Revelation 2:16, Revelation 6:8
a sword 1× Luke 2:35
Show sample aligned rows
Luke 2:35 ῥομφαία to a sword Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular Revelation 1:16 ῥομφαία to sword Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular Revelation 2:12 ῥομφαίαν to sword Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular Revelation 2:16 ῥομφαίᾳ to sword Noun - Dative Feminine Singular Revelation 6:8 ῥομφαίᾳ to sword Noun - Dative Feminine Singular Revelation 19:15 ῥομφαία to sword Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular Revelation 19:21 ῥομφαίᾳ to sword Noun - Dative Feminine Singular
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Luke 2:35
Aligned rows 7
Books represented 2
Luke 1 Revelation 6
Source forms
ῥομφαία 3x rhomphaia Luke 2:35, Revelation 1:16, Revelation 19:15
ῥομφαίᾳ 3x rhomphaia Revelation 2:16, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 19:21
ῥομφαίαν 1x rhomphaian Revelation 2:12
Parsing patterns
Noun - Dative Feminine Singular 3x Revelation 2:16, Revelation 6:8, Revelation 19:21
Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular 3x Luke 2:35, Revelation 1:16, Revelation 19:15
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular 1x Revelation 2:12
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Large broad sword; in NT used symbolically for divine judgment or piercing affliction of soul.
Strong's G4501
Lexical occurrences 7 verses Greek text appearances 7 times Word forms 3 forms 7 references Verse guides 0 guides
Source Gloss
sword
Extended definition Source: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Large broad sword; in NT used symbolically for divine judgment or piercing affliction of soul.
a large broad sword, used by the Thracians (see DB, iv, 634); then generally (in LXX used interchangeably with μάχαιρα, which see), a sword: Rev.1:16 2:12, 16 6:8 19:15, 21; metaphorically, Luk.2:35.
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Luke 2:35 Noun Nominative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαία· romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 1:16 Noun Nominative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαία romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 2:12 Noun Accusative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαίαν romfaian
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 2:16 Noun Dative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαίᾳ romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 6:8 Noun Dative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαίᾳ romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 19:15 Noun Nominative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαία romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
Read verse Revelation 19:21 Noun Dative Singular Feminine
ῥομφαίᾳ romfaia
a sword, piercing grief
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.
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 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.
Form patterns 3 Aligned forms 7 Case pattern Dative (3) Number pattern Singular (7)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · Feminine Luke 2:35 · Rev 1:16 · Rev 19:15 3×
Dative · Singular · Feminine Rev 2:16 · Rev 6:8 · Rev 19:21 3×
Accusative · Singular · Feminine Rev 2:12 1×
Selected Scripture Witness
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Witnesses
Luke 2:25–35 ῥομφαία rhomphaía
Large sword
Showing 1 selected witness from 7 lexical occurrence verses.
Word Origins
ῥομφαία is of foreign origin - no further derivation.
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Sources
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain