David S. Dockery & American Evangelicalism
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 68, No. 2 - Spring 2026
Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
The Baker Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words. Edited by Tremper Longman III and Mark L. Strauss. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2023, 1159 pp., $54.99.
Editors are Tremper Longman III, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Westmont College, and Mark L. Strauss, University Professor of New Testament at Bethel Seminary (L and S). The explanatory articles in the dictionary were written by twenty Old Testament and twenty-three New Testament scholars.
In the introductory article, the editors point out that different versions of the Bible translate differently. This expository dictionary aims to help a reader (not familiar with Hebrew and Greek) understand the meanings of original Hebrew and Greek words and to determine, from their contexts, the most likely meanings.
The recommended way to use this dictionary is given by editors as, first, to find out a word’s Strong number (according to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible) or another number developed by Edward W. Goodrick and John R. Kohlenberger III (in the NIV Complete Concordance). The ways to find out a word’s Strong number are either to look up the word in a concordance, in an interlinear Bible (Hebrew or Greek text with English word underneath and its Strong number), in a reverse interlinear Bible (English text with a Greek or Hebrew word underneath and its Strong number), or to use a Bible computer software.
After one has the Strong number, one can use two simple dictionaries in the back of this book: Hebrew-English (931–1035); Greek–English (1037–1159) dictionaries, to find the English word to look for in the main expository dictionary (21–930).
The entries in Hebrew-English and Greek-English dictionaries have the following information: 1. the Strong number; 2. the Goodrick and Kohlenberger number, in parentheses and italics; 3. the Greek or Hebrew word; 4. the Greek or Hebrew word transliterated with English letters in italics; 5. the part(s) of speech; 6. the various possible meanings of the word (its semantic range); 7. the number of times the word occurs in the Old or New Testament; and 8. the English word where one can find an article on that word in the main expository dictionary.
Not every word in the Bible has an article. An explanatory article is provided for Hebrew nouns, adjectives, and verbs that occur twenty-five times or more in the Old Testament and for Greek nouns, adjectives, and verbs that occur ten times or more in the New Testament. The main dictionary has English word entries ordered alphabetically. Under a word entry, the same information from the Hebrew-English and Greek–English dictionaries is repeated before the expository article.
Looking at the word “evil,” there are eleven different Hebrew words under the entry, but one explanatory essay covers them all, and there are four different Greek words, each has an explanatory note. If one uses Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, under the word “evil” or “evildoer,” one finds three words as adjectives, five words as nouns, two words as verbs, and one word as an adverb. The explanation in Vine’s is not as detailed as in Longman’s and Strauss’s book. One can use Vine’s to supplement this book. If one uses the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Kittel and Friedrich, and abridged by Bromiley, one needs to search each Greek word to get extensive information.
There are also other similar expository dictionaries available, including Lawrence Richards (1985), Stephen Renn (2005), and William Mounce (2006). In these volumes, the explanatory notes are written by the author. The strength of Longman’s and Strauss’s is that the articles were contributed by more than forty experts, and they are evangelicals.
This dictionary has a transliteration guide (17–18), but no reference notes for further studies. There is a summary of key issues in determining the meaning of a word (10–12). It contains an overview of the different Hebrew verbal stems and their significance (12–13). Overall, this expository dictionary is very suitable for students to do word studies and for pastors to prepare for sermons.
