What Strong’s numbers are, and are not
Strong’s numbers index biblical Greek and Hebrew words. They are a filing system, not a definition you can quote as if it were the verse.
Updated 2026-10-15
A filing number, not a meaning
James Strong published his Exhaustive Concordance in 1890. Each Hebrew and Greek dictionary headword received a number: H for Hebrew, G for Greek. G26 is ἀγάπη (agapē). H2617 is חֶסֶד (hesed). The number lets two people talk about the same dictionary entry even if they cannot type the original script.
The short English gloss printed beside the number is a hint from that era. It is not inspired, and it is not a full definition. Newer lexicons (BDAG for Greek, HALOT for Hebrew, and others) describe a range of uses with actual examples. LogosRealm shows the number so you can carry the word into one of those books.
Headword versus the form in the verse
The number points at a dictionary headword. The verse often has a different shape of that word: a different tense, a suffix, a construct form. ἠγάπησεν and ἀγαπάω share G25, but they are not spelled the same. A careful note records both the form in the verse and the headword the number indexes.
Hebrew is even easier to blur. A verb may appear with a prefix and a pronoun stuck to the end. The Strong’s number still points at the root entry. If you only memorize the gloss “to love,” you will miss when the form means “he loved,” “they will love,” or “cause to love.”
How to check a number
Copy the number, including the G or H. Open a lexicon or a concordance that uses Strong’s numbering. Read two or three real verses listed there, not only the gloss line. Ask what those sentences have in common, and where they differ.
If two tools disagree on the number, trust the lexicon entry you can open, not the smoother sentence. Numbers get swapped most often on rare words and on Hebrew homonyms that share a spelling.
A small habit that prevents bad teaching
Do not say “the Greek word literally means…” as if the word has one real English meaning. Most words have a range. “Literally” is often a way to pick one favorite meaning and hide the rest.
Name three things instead: the form written in this verse, the dictionary word the Strong’s number points to, and the job that form is doing in this sentence. That is longer. It is also what the text actually gives you.