The Christian Bible Reference Site

Word Counts: How Many Times Does a Word Appear in the Bible?

The table below gives some word counts for four popular versions of the Bible.* There is no single correct way to translate the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Bible manuscripts into English. The grammar, structure, and style of those languages are very different from English, and a literal word-for-word translation is not possible. Therefore, the number of times a particular word appears is usually different for each version of the Bible.

Word King James Version New American Standard Version - 1995 ed. New International Version New Revised Standard Version
Old Testament New Testament Old Testament New Testament Old Testament New Testament Old Testament New Testament
Believe 19 124 26 126 21 139 24 136
Brother 252 115 224 112 219 108 192 86
Covenant 272 20 282 34 264 33 313 31
Christ 0 555 0 516 0 530 0 468
Faith 2 245 4 246 16 254 18 246
Father 627 352 735 396 692 390 634 374
Forgive 28 28 34 27 42 32 37 28
God 3090 1354 3060 1298 2725 1244 2747 1252
Grace 39 131 9 122 8 123 4 118
Hate 71 16 80 13 63 17 76 18
Heart 725 105 608 118 489 81 496 96
Heaven 327 255 233 224 186 236 246 248
Hell 31 23 0 13 0 14 0 13
Jesus 0 983 0 986 0 1273 0 999
Joy 102 63 122 60 155 63 114 58
Light 177 95 143 86 139 93 146 90
Lord 7234 712 7102 651 7143 618 6561 610
Love 131 179 133 215 319 232 317 221
Mary 0 54 0 54 0 57 0 53
Messiah 2 0 2 6 0 2 0 66
Mother 159 86 152 80 152 85 141 79
Music 15 (Musick) 1 (Musick) 11 1 87 3 14 1
Praise 222 26 179 28 299 41 182 22
Pray 245 68 57 52 48 73 61 61
Remember 121 27 137 31 130 36 125 34
Sin 336 112 317 113 347 127 297 121
Wealth 25 2 69 12 99 18 71 15
Wisdom 181 53 164 52 166 52 164 52

*These word counts are approximate. They include only the base word as shown. Thus, the count for "Lord" does not include "Lord's," and the count for "light" does not include "lights," "lighted," "daylight," etc. Headings, footnotes and the books of the Apocrypha are not included. Different search programs will often find different numbers, depending on the exact search algorithm used.