Verbum provides powerful search capabilities to allow you to quickly find words, phrases, and more within the Bibles in your Verbum library. If you have a Verbum subscription, the Bible search supports two search modes:
- Smart mode - where you can use natural language queries and Verbum will return the most relevant results
- Precise mode - where you can use more precise syntax to search for specific terms, including making use of detailed Verbum tagging
For both modes, you start by opening a Search window, and selecting the Bible tab:
Then select the search mode you want from the toggle.
Note: Even with Smart mode selected, a precise search will be used if you enclose the search string in quotation marks, use advanced search terms or if the search query is all Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic.
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Smart Bible Searching
To execute a smart Bible search, enter a natural language query in the search box and Verbum will return the most relevant verses - with the most relevant first.
To see these results displayed in different Bibles, click the Add versions button and select the additional Bible(s) you want from the dropdown menu.
While you can't select a passage range in this mode, you can restrict the search to a particular range by including a constraint in your search term.
Precise Bible Searching
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Running a Bible Search
With a Bible Search open, set to precise mode, you can choose the translation(s) you want to search (by default, Verbum will search your preferred Bible).
Verbum provides several tools to help you formulate your search query, and to help you find exactly what you are looking for.
Search Helps (1) provide basic guidance about how to construct your search while search templates (2) allow you to build a more complex search without having to use search syntax. To use a template, select the kind of search you want to run, then enter your search terms in the dialog box that appears. These search Templates appear in the left navigation menu, which can be toggled on/off using the navigation menu icon .
Note: Search templates are not available on the web app.
As you start typing a search query, Verbum will populate a list of suggestions (3) to help you refine your search. You can select one of these for your search, alternatively finish typing your search query and press Enter which will execute the search.
Search Results
Once you have run the search, you can choose to display the results in different ways:
Passages View
This view displays the verses containing your search results.
To view two or more versions side-by-side, click the Add Versions button on the right of the panel. You will see a numbers of sections representing different groupings of Bibles or, at the bottom, a list of all available Bibles in prioritized order. Select the one(s) you want and it will be added to the results pane.
Aligned View
Note: This view is not available on the web app.
This view displays the verses containing your search results and aligns them by your search terms.
Grid View
Note: This view is not available on the web app.
This view displays a visual grid showing where your search results. This is particularly useful when you want to see where the search term appears in a range of Bibles such as your Top 5 Bibles.
Analysis view
This view displays your search results and provides detailed contextual and original-language information.
Fuzzy (requires internet connection)
This view draws from dozens of translations and Verbum's extensive data tagging to give you the best match to your search query. It can be particularly helpful when searching for a phrase that you can't quite remember - although, assuming you have a subscription, using a smart Bible search can produce some really helpful results.
Refining Your Search
There are a range of options available to refine your search:
- You can limit your search to one or more fields by clicking All Bible Text to open the search field drop-down menu and then selecting one of more options from the dropdown.
- You can choose whether you want search results to be constrained to verse or chapter boundaries
- You can limit your search to specific sections of the Bible, or to a Passage List, by clicking All Passages to open the reference range drop-down menu and typing a reference or making a selection.
Searching for Specific Morphologies
The examples above used English words but if you search for an original language lemma you can include morphology information as well.
If, for example, you wanted to search for the Greek term translated as Go in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19) you could use lemma.g:πορεύομαι which would give the results shown.
As shown in the Information Tool in the screenshot above, the verb, in Matthew 28:19, the verb is a plural, aorist participle. You can specify this morphology in the Search Panel to produce a refined set of results.
Using Search Operators
In addition to search limiting options discussed above, you can refine your search results using search operators. You can use search operators to create more advanced searches. For example, if you'd like to find a phrase containing two words, but you don't know the exact phrase, try typing word WITHIN 5 WORDS word. Your search results will display every occurrence where the two words you entered are mentioned within five words of each other.
Note: Bible searches for multiple terms are constrained by either verse or chapter boundaries depending on the option you selected. They will only return results in which all of the terms appear within either the same verse or chapter.
For more details on using Search Operators, please see this article.
Graph Search Results
After you run a search, you can view graphs displaying where your search results appear. To do so, click Charts , then select the type from the left of the results window.
Additional Resources
- Verbum Help: Bible Search
For both modes, you start by opening the action menu and selecting the Search option to open a search window.
Then, tap the currently selected search type - in this case All - and select a Bible search and optionally the Bible(s) you want to search in. Once you have the Bible search type selected, tap the search mode and choose the mode you want from the panel.
Note: Even with Smart mode selected, a precise search will be used if you enclose the search string in quotation marks, use advanced search terms or if the search query is all Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic.
Skip ahead to:
Smart Bible Searching
To execute a smart Bible search, enter a natural language query in the search box - such as Where does Jesus speak about being the light of the world? - and Verbum will return the most relevant verses - with the most relevant first. While you can't select a passage range in this mode, you can restrict the search to a particular range by including a constraint in your search term - such as Where is resurrection referred to in the wisdom literature?
Precise Bible Searching
Skip ahead to:
Running a Bible Search
With a Bible Search open, set to precise mode, you can choose the translation(s) you want to search by tapping the currently selected Bible and choosing from the options shown (1). And you can restrict the search to a particular passage range by tapping the currently selected range and choosing from the options shown (2).
As you start typing a search query, Verbum will populate a list of suggestions to help you refine your search. You can select one of these for your search, alternatively finish typing your search query and press Search which will execute the search.
Search Results
Once you have run the search, you can choose to display the results in different ways.
The Passages view displays the verses containing your search results, while the Aligned view displays the same verses but aligns them by your search terms.
The Fuzzy view (requires an Internet connection) draws from dozens of translations and Verbum's extensive data tagging to give you the best match to your search query. It can be particularly helpful when searching for a phrase that you can't quite remember - although, assuming you have a subscription, using a smart Bible search can produce some really helpful results.
Using Search Operators
In addition to search limiting options discussed above, you can refine your search results using search operators. You can use search operators to create more advanced searches. For example, if you'd like to find a phrase containing two words, but you don't know the exact phrase, try typing word WITHIN 5 WORDS word. Your search results will display every occurrence where the two words you entered are mentioned within five words of each other.
Note: Bible searches will only return results in which all of the terms appear within the same verse.
For more details on using Search Operators, please see this article.