etos · year

What it means

etos (ἔτος) is a Greek word of the Bible that means “year”.

How to say it

Approximate pronunciation. Vowels sound as in Spanish (a as in father, e as in bed, i as in machine, o as in note, u as in rule); the syllable in bold is stressed. The voice is your device's.

Its senses in the Bible

1. A span of twelve months, by which age and events are counted.

From Abbott-Smith (1922) · Thayer (1889)

Word study

Year. It is used almost always for counting: a person’s age, how long something lasts, or how much time has passed.

• Age: “when he was twelve years {old}” Luke 2:42Luke 3:23John 8:57
• How long something lasts: forty years in the wilderness Acts 7:36Hebrews 3:17John 2:20
• Years of illness Luke 13:11John 5:5
• “A thousand years like one day” 2 Peter 3:8Revelation 20:2
• “Your years will not come to an end”: God’s years Hebrews 1:12

Historical and cultural background

Jesus’ parents “used to go every year to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover” (Luke 2:41), and at twelve years old he went up with them (2:42).

How we translate it

“Years” 46 times and “year” 3 (“in the fifteenth year”, Luke 3:1). In Luke 2:41 the phrase ‘each year’ reads “every year”.

How it is translated

The words this translation uses for it, most frequent first.

• years ×46
• year ×3

Related words

Words of the same family, by Strong’s numbering.

Where it appears

• Matthew×1
• Mark×2
• Luke×15
• John×3
• Acts×11
• Romans×1
• 2 Corinthians×1
• Galatians×3
• 1 Timothy×1
• Hebrews×3
• 2 Peter×2
• Revelation×6

• Matthew 9:20

  And look, a woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak;

• Mark 5:25

  And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years,

• Mark 5:42

  And at once the girl got up and was walking; for she was twelve years old. And at once they were overcome with great amazement.

• Luke 2:36

  And there was a prophetess, Anna, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in many days, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity,

• Luke 2:37

  and she was a widow until she was eighty-four years old. She did not leave the temple, serving God with fastings and petitions night and day.

• Luke 2:41

  And his parents used to go every year to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.

• Luke 2:42

  And when he was twelve years old, as they went up according to the custom of the feast,

• Luke 3:1

  Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

• Luke 3:23

  And Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began, being the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, son of Heli,

• Luke 4:25

  But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in the days of Elijah in Israel, when heaven was shut for three years and six months, when a great famine came over all the land;

• Luke 8:42

  because he had an only daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. And as he went, the crowds were crushing him.

• Luke 8:43

  And a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her living on doctors and could not be healed by anyone,

• Luke 12:19

  And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; rest, eat, drink, be merry.”’

• Luke 13:7

  And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years I have been coming looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I do not find any. Cut it down; why should it also use up the ground?’

• Luke 13:8

  But he answered and says to him, ‘Master, leave it this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure;

• Luke 13:11

  And look, there was a woman who had a spirit of weakness for eighteen years, and she was bent over and not able to straighten up completely.

• Luke 13:16

  And this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound, look, for eighteen years, ought she not to be released from this bond on the day of the Sabbath?”

• Luke 15:29

  But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look, so many years I have been slaving for you, and I never broke your command, and to me you never gave a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends;

• John 2:20

  So the Jews said, “This sanctuary was built in forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?”

• John 5:5

  A certain man was there who had been in his illness thirty-eight years.

• John 8:57

  So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham?”

• Acts 4:22

  For the man on whom this sign of healing had been done was more than forty years old.

• Acts 7:6

  And God spoke thus: that his offspring would be foreigners in a land belonging to others, and they would enslave them and mistreat them four hundred years.

• Acts 7:30

  And when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

• Acts 7:36

  This man led them out, doing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.

• Acts 7:42

  But God turned away and handed them over to worship the army of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘You did not offer me slaughtered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, did you, house of Israel?

• Acts 9:33

  And there he found a certain man named Aeneas, lying on a mat for eight years, who was paralyzed.

• Acts 13:20

  for about four hundred and fifty years. And after these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.

• Acts 13:21

  And then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.

• Acts 19:10

  And this went on for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

• Acts 24:10

  And Paul answered, when the governor had motioned to him to speak: “Knowing that for many years you have been judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense in the matters concerning myself,

• Acts 24:17

  Now after several years I came to bring alms to my nation and offerings,

• Romans 15:23

  But now, no longer having a place in these regions, and having a longing to come to you for many years,

• 2 Corinthians 12:2

  I know a man in the Messiah fourteen years ago —whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know; God knows— that such a one was caught up to the third heaven.

• Galatians 1:18

  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas, and I stayed with him fifteen days.

• Galatians 2:1

  Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking along Titus also.

• Galatians 3:17

  Now this I say: a covenant previously ratified by God, the law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not annul, so as to nullify the promise.

• 1 Timothy 5:9

  Let a widow be put on the list who is not less than sixty years old, the wife of one man,

• Hebrews 1:12

  and like a cloak you will roll them up, like a garment, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not come to an end.

• Hebrews 3:10

  for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, and I said: Always they go astray in their heart, and they did not know my ways.

And 9 more times.