Bible word study

Kosmos (Strong’s G2889): Meaning in the Bible

Kosmos (κόσμος) is the Greek word numbered G2889 in Strong’s concordance of the Bible. Strong’s defines it as orderly arrangement, i.e. decoration; by implication, the world (in a wide or narrow sense, including its inhabitants, literally or figuratively (morally)). In the King James Bible it is translated adorning, world..

• Original wordκόσμος
• Transliterationkósmos
• Pronunciationkos'-mos
• Strong’s numberG2889
• LanguageGreek

The full Strong’s definition

Derivation. probably from the base of G2865;

How the King James Bible translates it

Where Kosmos appears in the Bible

In the King James Bible’s text tagged with Strong’s numbers, Kosmos (G2889) stands behind 195 English renderings in 152 verses across 20 of the 66 books. It is most frequent in John (82), 1 John (24), 1 Corinthians (21).

How the King James Bible renders Kosmos, by count

• world122 of 195 (63 percent)
• the world50 of 195 (26 percent)
• of the world9 of 195 (5 percent)
• the5 of 195 (3 percent)
• of3 of 195 (2 percent)
• unto the world2 of 195 (1 percent)

Three places to read Kosmos

• Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
• John 16:11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.
• 2 Corinthians 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Counts are made at build time from the King James text tagged with Strong’s numbers (eBible.org, public domain). Verses are read from the stored King James text, never typed.

Why the word matters

Every word the biblical writers chose carries weight. Studying Kosmos in the original Greek lets you read the passages where it appears more carefully, closer to what the first hearers understood, so the meaning is drawn from the text itself rather than from the English alone.

The lexical data on this page comes from the public-domain Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890), a Hebrew and Greek dictionary keyed to the King James Bible. It is a reference tool, not a settled verdict: no single word decides a doctrine, and meaning is finally shaped by how a word is used in its sentences. Read the passages themselves, prayerfully, and in full.

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