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Greek noun (feminine) · G5443

φυλή

phylefoo-lay'

tribe

31 uses in the Greek text, one for each word STEP Bible has tagged with this key

Concordance spelling: phylḗ

Word page · Part of the concordance, one page for every word of the Hebrew and Greek text. Strong's G5443is this word's number in James Strong's 1890 index of the King James Bible.

  • 8 of 27
    New Testament books
  • 6
    spellings

The definition in full

Strong's key (1890) · G5443

an offshoot, i.e. race or clan

The King James renders it: kindred, tribe.

James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890), public domain. Strong indexed the King James text, and this site quotes his entry as that index.

Summary

phyle is rendered "tribe". It stands 31 times in the Greek text, across eight books.

  • Twenty-one of the uses stand in Revelation, more than in any other book.
  • Its first use in canonical order opens the ledger below.Matthew 19:28Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
  • The Greek text spells it six different ways.

The first use

Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

Matthew 19:28φυλὰς

The first use, in the order of the New Testament's books.

Where the word stands

Twenty-one of the word's thirty-one uses are in Revelation.

The other 19 New Testament books never use the word.

What the word means

Each meaning, and the words it is translated by

How the Greek text is glossed, word by word

  • tribe19
  • tribes8
  • of tribe2
  • a tribe1
  • to a tribe1

The words built on the same word-part

Each word below begins with the same letters this one begins with. A shared word-part shows a family. It does not settle what any one of them means, so each word carries its own uses on its own page. Scholars call that shared part the stem.

The words it stands beside

All 31, in canonical order

Every use, in order

Every use, grouped by book, with its verse.

6 spellings and their grammar

STEP Bible tags every word of the Hebrew and Greek text with its spelling and its grammar. Both lists below count the rows printed underneath, written out in English, with the code beside each one as it was tagged.

How it is spelled

  • φυλῆς20
  • φυλὴν3
  • φυλῶν3
  • φυλαὶ2
  • φυλὰς2
  • φυλαῖς1

The grammar of each form

  • noun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singular20N-GSF
  • noun · accusative (object) · feminine singular3N-ASF
  • noun · genitive (“of”) · feminine plural3N-GPF
  • noun · accusative (object) · feminine plural2N-APF
  • noun · nominative (subject) · feminine plural2N-NPF
  • noun · dative (“to / for”) · feminine plural1N-DPF

Matthew

two uses
  • Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, in the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

    Matthew 19:28

    • φυλὰςphulasnoun · accusative (object) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes
  • At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

    Matthew 24:30

    • φυλαὶphulainoun · nominative (subject) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes

Luke

two uses
  • There was also a prophetess named Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher, who was well along in years. She had been married for seven years,

    Luke 2:36

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • so that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

    Luke 22:30

    • φυλὰςphulasnoun · accusative (object) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes

Acts

one use
  • Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them forty years under Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin.

    Acts 13:21

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe

Romans

one use
  • I ask then, did God reject His people? Certainly not! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

    Romans 11:1

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: of tribe

Philippians

one use
  • circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin; a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

    Philippians 3:5

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: of tribe

Hebrews

two uses
  • He of whom these things are said belonged to a different tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.

    Hebrews 7:13

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: to a tribe
  • For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, a tribe as to which Moses said nothing about priests.

    Hebrews 7:14

    • φυλὴνphulennoun · accusative (object) · feminine singulartagged: a tribe

James

one use
  • James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes of the Dispersion: Greetings.

    James 1:1

    • φυλαῖςphulaisnoun · dative (“to / for”) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes

Revelation

twenty-one uses
  • Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.

    Revelation 1:7

    • φυλαὶphulainoun · nominative (subject) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes
  • Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

    Revelation 5:5

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • And they sang a new song: “Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

    Revelation 5:9

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel:

    Revelation 7:4

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000,

    Revelation 7:5

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,

    Revelation 7:6

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,

    Revelation 7:7

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, and from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

    Revelation 7:8

    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
    • φυλῆςphulesnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • After this I looked and saw a multitude too large to count, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.

    Revelation 7:9

    • φυλῶνphulonnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes
  • For three and a half days all peoples and tribes and tongues and nations will view their bodies and will not permit them to be laid in a tomb.

    Revelation 11:9

    • φυλῶνphulonnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes
  • Then the beast was permitted to wage war against the saints and to conquer them, and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation.

    Revelation 13:7

    • φυλὴνphulennoun · accusative (object) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • Then I saw another angel flying overhead, with the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation and tribe and tongue and people.

    Revelation 14:6

    • φυλὴνphulennoun · accusative (object) · feminine singulartagged: tribe
  • The city had a great and high wall with twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve angels at the gates.

    Revelation 21:12

    • φυλῶνphulonnoun · genitive (“of”) · feminine pluraltagged: tribes

Where it leads

How the numbers are counted

Every count on this page comes from STEP Bible's tagged Hebrew and Greek text, the same text the ledger prints. A use is counted once each time the tagging marks a word with this key.

Spellings are counted as the Greek text spells them, with the sentence's own punctuation taken off the word first, so a form that ends a clause is not counted as a second spelling.

The words it stands beside are the nouns, verbs and adjectives immediately before or after it, counted in every verse where the word stands. The article, the conjunctions and the prepositions are left out, because they stand beside every word.

Hebrew and Greek text, word tagging and grammar: STEP Bible (www.STEPBible.org), Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0. Their grammar codes are written out in English here and shown as tagged beside each one.

Meaning and senses: STEP Bible TBESG (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0), the Brief lexicon based on Abbott-Smith (1922).

Dictionary key: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890, public domain). English verse text: Berean Standard Bible (public domain, 2023).

Revised 2026-09-05. Every cited work, the sources registry →