Strong's Exhaustive Concordance - Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading – Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance

Do you know how many times the word ‘fear’ appears in the King James Version of the Bible? I do, because Dr. James Strong spent 35 years counting them. He had help, more than 100 colleagues, but no computer. These men had the Bible and they made a list of every word in every verse. Then they listed the words in alphabetical order and then they listed every verse where each word appears.

Their work was first published in 1890: Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

I recommend it even if you are not using the King James Version of the Bible. It is great for looking up a verse that you can only half remember or even passages that you can’t quite place, like where are the disciples listed, or where is the armor of God, or the definition of Love is…

Many Bible’s have a simple concordance in the back. Take a look. If yours is like mine there are 3 columns of verses per page. In mine under the heading Remembers are three entries:

He remembers that we are dust – Psalms 103:14
He remembers His covenant forever Psalms 111:5
and He remembers your sins no more. Isaiah 43:25

I marked the last two in my Bible because it sounded like such a wonderful promise: He remembers His covenant forever and He remembers your sins no more.

Strong’s Concordance is exhaustive – not exhausting – exhaustive. That means that they searched every verse and listed where every word could be found. They did the exhausting bit, all you have to do is know what keyword to look up and viola there it is.

There are 114 lines per column and 38-1/2 columns listed under ‘God’. That’s over 4332 times that the word ‘God’ appears in the King James Version. I once went through them all looking for the keywords “God is…” The results were interesting.

God is not a man Numbers 12:19
God is greater than man Job 33:12
God is wiser than man’s wisdom 1 Corinthians 1:25
God is Love 1 John 4:8

That is the short list. There were others.

Which brings me back to ‘fear’. Because Dr. Strong did all the work all I have to do is count the columns under the heading fear. The word fear appears 397 times in the King James Version. And again the results were interesting. There is an abiding theme in these verses: Fear the Lord your God and Fear not… Many of the verses which the King James Version translates as ‘fear’ is translated as ‘respect’ in the New International Version.

Which is also interesting to my wondering mind. So as I go down the list my mind translates:

Fear not… Genesis 15:1
Fear not for God hath heard... Genesis 21:17
Fear not for I am with thee... Genesis 26:24
For I fear (Respect) God… Genesis 42:18
Fear not… Genesis 43:23
Fear not… Genesis 46:3
Fear not… Genesis 50:19

To find out what not to fear and why not to fear you have to look the whole verse up in the Bible. 

Fear not... Genesis 50:19 - Why not?

Because even though - you intended to harm me, God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)

Therefore fear not… Genesis 50:21

Concordances are study aids and few people read them like I do. Still, if you are intent on studying the word of God, to search the word as if searching for treasure and using the Bible as a measure of every new idea out there in the wide world of religion then I recommend Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance.

Simple – Ain’t – Easy
But a good Concordance helps
Wendy