noun · feminine

Greekγέεννα (geenna)

Biblang

geennas

Strong’sG1067

Gehenna

stem geenn-12 times in the New Testamentin 4 of 27 books3 of 10 forms occur

What it means

A plain-English reading of the word, with the lexicons it draws on — Abbott-Smith, Strong's, and Liddell-Scott-Jones — right below it, in full.

AI Summary

Gehenna ⁴ is the name of a valley on the edge of Jerusalem ¹³, originally called the valley of (the son of) Hinnom in Hebrew ¹²³. In earlier times this valley had been a site of fire-worship and was later desecrated and turned into a dumping-ground for the city's refuse ¹.

From this literal place the name came to be used as a symbol for the place of future, everlasting punishment ¹²³ — what English commonly calls hell ². In this figurative sense it appears repeatedly in the New Testament, including in phrases such as "Gehenna of fire," "son of Gehenna," and "judgment of Gehenna" ¹.

Sources: 1 Abbott-Smith 2 Strong's 3 LSJ 4 Dodson. Condensed by anthropic/claude-sonnet-5 on 2026-09-23 — it may still misstate what these say; check them yourself if it matters to you.

The lexicons it was drawn from, in full:

Abbott-Smith — the 1922 lexicon entry, in full

† γέεννα (γέενα, Mk 9:45, Rec.), -ης, ἡ (perh. through Aram. גֵּיהִנָּם, from Heb. גֵּי הִנֹּם, Ne 11:30; גֵּי בֶּן־הִנֹּם, Jo 18:16; גֵּי בּנֵי־הִנֹּם, IV Ki 23:10; valley of (the son, sons of) lamentation);

[in LXX the nearest approach to γ. is γαίεννα, Jos 18:16 (Γαὶ Ὀννόμ, A), elsewhere φάραγξ Ὀνόμ (Jos 15:8, al.), V. Swete on Mk 9:43;]

Gehenna, a valley W. and S. of Jerusalem, which as the site of fire-worship from the time of Ahaz, was desecrated by Josiah and became a dumping-place for the offal of the city. Later, the name was used as a symbol of the place of future punishment, as in NT: Mt 5:29, 30 10:28, Mk 9:43, 45, 47, Lk 12:5, Ja 3:6; γ. τ. πυρός, Mt 5:22 18:19, prob. with ref. to fires of Moloch (DB, ii, 119b); υἱὸς γεέννης, Mt 23:15; κρίσις γεέννης, 23:33.†

G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 1922 — public domain. References open in the reader.

Strong’s G1067 — the 1890 definition, and where the word comes from

Saidgheh'-en-nah

valley of (the son of) Hinnom; ge-henna (or Ge-Hinnom), a valley of Jerusalem, used (figuratively) as a name for the place (or state) of everlasting punishment

Fromof Hebrew origin ( and );

King Jameshell.

James Strong, Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 1890 — public domain. The numbers in it link to the entries here.

Liddell-Scott-Jones — the classical dictionary this word appears in

γέεννα, ης, ἡ,
Hebrew gé-hinnóm, the valley of Hinnom, which represented the place of future punishment, NT

H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed., 1925–1940) — digitised by the Perseus Digital Library and corrected and expanded by Tyndale House, Cambridge, via STEPBible-Data's TFLSJ table, CC BY 4.0. Covers all of Greek literature, not just the Bible.

Translated as

Every occurrence, sorted by the English it was actually given — the evidence for what the word means, not a gloss of it.

hell12×

Berean Standard Bible (BSB), dedicated to the public domain — berean.bible.

Biblang forms

Every form this word takes in Biblang, with the Greek it corresponds to and how often the New Testament uses it.

Job in the sentence case	one singular	more than one plural
subject nominative	geennas	geennais
object accusative	geennan8×γέενναν	geennain
direct address vocative	geennar	geennair
of, belonging to genitive	geennau3×γεέννης	geennaiu
to, for dative	geenna1×γεέννῃ	geennai

Tinted cells are forms the New Testament never uses, so there is no Greek to show against them — but they are still correct Biblang, built from the slots below like any other.

Why these forms, and no others — the slots that make them

geennstem+agender+snru—its job in the sentence case+—ione · more than one number

geenna is this word in every one of its forms. The slots after it make all the rest.

same in every form varies — every value shown

Where it appears

Every verse the word appears in, filed under the form it takes there.

12 occurrences, every one of them listed

geennan“hell”objectaccusative singular8×

Matthew 5:22… legateia; Mōror, enochos eti eis tan geennan teu pureu.… be subject to the fire of hell.

Matthew 5:29… holem tem sōmem su baliteia eis geennan.… whole body to be thrown into hell.

Matthew 5:30… mē holem tem sōmem su eis geennan aperchateia.… your whole body to depart into hell.

Matthew 18:9… duo ofthalmoin echarōnton balira eis tan geennan teu pureu.… be thrown into the fire of hell.

Mark 9:43… duo cheirain echarōnton aperchara eis tan geennan, eis tem purem tem asbestem.… have two hands and go into hell, into the unquenchable fire.

Mark 9:45… duo podoin echarōnton balira eis tan geennan.… two feet and be thrown into hell.

Mark 9:47… duo ofthalmoin echarōnton balira eis tan geennan,… two eyes and be thrown into hell,

Luke 12:5… apoktenara echarōnton exousian embalara eis tan geennan; nai, legamō vi, houton fobivar.… has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him!

geennau“hell”of, belonging togenitive singular3×

Matthew 23:15… kai hotan geneteia poiavō auton huion geennau diplouoteron vu.… twice as much a son of hell as you are.

Matthew 23:33… pōs fugaveia apo tau krisiau tau geennau?… will you escape the sentence of hell?

James 3:6… tau genesiau kai flogizorōntas hupo tau geennau.… is itself set on fire by hell.

geenna“hell”to, fordative singular1×

Matthew 10:28… kai psuchan kai sōmem apolara en geenna.… destroy both soul and body in hell.