To stone
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G3036 is a verb for stoning or attacking with stones. Its seven governed forms describe a tenant stoning an owner's servant, Jerusalem stoning sent prophets, the killing of Stephen, a planned attack on Paul and Barnabas, and the Sinai command concerning an animal that touches the mountain.
Reader summary
Full entry for λιθοβολέω (G3036) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3036 is a verb for stoning or attacking with stones. Its seven governed forms describe a tenant stoning an owner's servant, Jerusalem stoning sent prophets, the killing of Stephen, a planned attack on Paul and Barnabas, and the Sinai command concerning an animal that touches the mountain.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include stones (2), [and] began to stone [him] (1), it must be stoned (1), stone (1), stoned (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 21:35. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (3), Matthew (2), Hebrews (1), Luke (1).
G3036 is a verb for stoning or attacking with stones. Its seven governed forms describe a tenant stoning an owner's servant, Jerusalem stoning sent prophets, the killing of Stephen, a planned attack on Paul and Barnabas, and the Sinai command concerning an animal that touches the mountain. The occurrences do not create one undifferentiated legal category. They appear in parable, lament, mob violence, threatened violence, martyrdom narrative, and a covenant warning cited by Hebrews.
John 8 discusses stoning in translation, but the governed witness contains no G3036 form there, so it is not evidence for this lexeme. Teaching should describe the violence truthfully, distinguish each setting, and never convert these passages into permission for retaliation or vigilante punishment.
Seven exact G3036 forms occur in seven verses. They name stoning in Jesus' parable and lament, Stephen's martyrdom, a planned attack in Acts, and Hebrews' citation of the Sinai boundary.
But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.
The parable depicts violent rejection before the owner sends his son.
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
The verb appears within Jesus' lament over rejected messengers and an unwilling city.
They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Luke identifies both the violence against Stephen and Saul's presence.
While they were stoning him, Stephen appealed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’
Stephen entrusts himself to Jesus while the attack continues.
But when the Gentiles and Jews, together with their rulers, set out to mistreat and stone them,
This occurrence concerns a planned attack rather than a completed stoning.
For they could not bear what was commanded: ‘If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.’
The cited penalty contributes to Hebrews' portrayal of the terrifying Sinai approach.
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. Capital punishment by crowd violence, emphasizing the violent collective method rather than mere pelting.
Capital punishment by crowd violence, emphasizing the violent collective method rather than mere pelting.
(λίθος, βάλλω), [in LXX for סָקַל, רָגַם, Exo.19:13, Lev.20:2, al. ;] to pelt with stones, to kill by stoning, to stone (cf. λιθάζω): with accusative of person(s), Mat.21:35 23:37, Luk.13:34 Act.7:58-59 14:5; pass., Heb.12:20 (LXX).
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
9 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
Read verseI stone, cast stones at
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 7 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 7 lexical occurrence verses.
λιθοβολέω 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.
The seven occurrences name the same kind of physical action, but they do not assign it the same narrative role. Tenants reject an owner's servant in a parable. Jerusalem's stoning of messengers appears in Jesus' lament. Stephen suffers a lethal attack while bearing witness to Jesus, and Paul and Barnabas escape a planned assault. Hebrews cites a command tied to the fearful Sinai boundary.
Faithful teaching should neither sanitize the violence nor use a shared verb to erase these distinctions. It should also refuse to smuggle John 8 into the lexical evidence merely because an English translation mentions stoning there. The governed identity must control occurrence claims, while the surrounding passage controls legal, covenantal, and pastoral synthesis.
Acts.7.58-59
The seven governed forms include active and passive expressions across several tense and mood patterns. The verb can describe an ongoing attack, a completed action, a habitual characterization, a planned assault, or a commanded penalty according to syntax and context.
Hebrews directly cites the Sinai boundary, and Jesus' lament invokes Israel's history of rejecting sent messengers. Those canonical connections must be handled through the passages' arguments rather than used to authorize contemporary violence.
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