This powerful feature—drawn from the notes of the NIV Exhaustive Concordance Dictionary—is available to Bible Gateway Plus members. Selecting it makes the original language words (Hebrew and Greek) appear below the NIV Bible text. In order to use this resource, you will need to open the New International Version text on the screen.
You can open the NIV Reverse Interlinear two ways on Bible Gateway.com. First, make sure you are reading a passage, then you can select the "Hebrew/Greek" tab to the right and click "Continue." Second, make sure you are reading a passage in the NIV and go to the gear icon that appears above the text. Click the "Page Options" and select "Reverse Interlinear" - once that box is checked, the NIV will refresh with the interlinear.
The following example uses the Hebrew word, God, or ’ᵉlōhîm, found in Genesis 1:1. Hovering over that word will highlight all occurances in the passage. Once you click on the word, additional details will display.
1. All entries begin with the Goodrick/Kohlenberger (G/K) number assigned to that word in bold:
2. After the G/K number is the lexical form or dictionary form of that word (אֱלֹהִים), followed by its transliteration in bold (’ᵉlōhîm), and the abbreviated part(s) of speech.
3. In the square brackets, you’ll find the total number of occurrences (2603) in the biblical text, and related words by G/K number.
In the NIV Exhaustive Concordance Dictionary, words are grouped into “organizing words”, denoted by the root symbol (√), and “related words”, denoted by an arrow (→).
Editor’s note: Although the root symbol is used to organize related words, this does not mean that this word is the root from which all related words are derived and to which all must relate in meaning. The related words lists are provided simply to allow users to do more thorough word studies.
4. After these six heading elements, you’ll find a concise definition for that word.
5. The definition ends with a colon and a dash (:–). After this symbol is a list of all the ways in which the word is translated in the NIV, in descending order of frequency (frequency in parentheses following each NIV word).
6. Some words (often pronouns) are substitutions for the original-language word. These are indicated with a raised “s”.
7. When an NIV word or phrase translates more than one word of the original, the G/K number of the additional word(s) follows the frequency count in square brackets.
8. Some entries conclude with a count of where the original word was ‘Not directly translated’ in the NIV.
Please note that the NIV Reverse Interlinear is not available in the Bible Gateway App.