Note: Available in packages Bronze and above.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a different style of lexicon organized around the sense, or meaning, of words and takes into account how they are used in original language contexts. Senses can span different words (lemmas) and different languages, while the same word can have a different sense in different contexts.
One of the innovative features of the Bible Sense Lexicon is how entries are arranged in a hierarchical manner with “lower” entries refining the characteristics of those further up the structure.
Get Started
- Open the Bible Sense Lexicon by clicking the Tools icon
, scrolling down to the Reference section, and selecting Bible Sense Lexicon, or by clicking the Tools icon
- Search for a sense by entering it in the search box in the Bible Sense Lexicon panel. As you type, a dropdown list of suggested searches will appear. Select one of these, or continue typing your query and press Enter.
The Left Panel
The left-hand panel displays:
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The sense label, part of speech, and a definition.
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A graph showing the frequency of the sense’s usage throughout the Bible, organized by book. The number of occurrences is to the left of the graph.
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A link to perform a Bible search for that sense.
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The Lemmas section lists the original language words associated with the sense, ordered by frequency. (Clicking a lemma will open a Bible Word Study for that lemma.)
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The Relationships section displays how the current sense relates to other senses. The plus icon
indicates that the adjacent sense connects to subordinate senses. Clicking one of these related senses updates the Bible Sense Lexicon to show that entry.
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The See Also section contains links to related Factbook entries, Topic Guide, and Louw-Nida numbers.
The Right Panel
The right-hand panel displays the hierarchy of senses for your search term. Hovering over a sense opens a tooltip displaying a definition and lemmas for that sense. Senses with adjacent filled-in circles have subordinate senses and can be expanded by clicking them.
Bible Sense Lexicon to Bible Search
Use the Bible Sense Lexicon to perform a Bible search:
- Type a query in the Bible Sense Lexicon search box and press Enter.
- Click Search for sense [“search term”]. A new Bible Search panel will appear displaying the results of a sense search for your query.
Note: A sense search in the form sense:[term] will return results for that sense as well as any subordinate senses. To exclude subordinate senses, add an equals sign to the search: sense:=[term].
Sense Search from the Context Menu
To run a Sense search from a biblical passage, right-click a word, scroll down the left of the context menu until you reach the sense entry, click it and then click Search > Bible on the right.