Bible word count statistics

One fascinating aspect of Bible study is looking at word counts. In SwordSearcher, it’s easy to get detailed statistics from a search, and combining this with word form searches can make it even more interesting. Here’s an example.

First, type “justify” in the main search box, and then choose the option to find the various word forms, which includes “justifieth, justifying,” etc. As it shows, it will return 57 verses.

Entering a search for justify
Entering a search for “justify”. Select the multiple word forms option.

Next, in the verse list panel that appears, click the Search information and statistics button on the toolbar.

Search result statistics button.
Search result statistics button.

Now you can see a breakdown of each search term and how many matches there are in the Bible.

Breakdown of the word forms of Justify in the Bible
Breakdown of the word forms of Justify in the Bible

There’s more. Next we learn which verses have the fewest matches, and which have the most (in this case, Galatians 2:16 has a form of the word Justify three times):

Some initial frequency information.
Some initial frequency information.

Following this we have a series of graphs giving us specific percentages and a visual representation.

Verse match counts by book of the Bible.
Verse match counts by book of the Bible.
Verse Match Count Relative to Book Verse Count
Verse Match Count Relative to Book Verse Count: shows ratio of matching verses to book verse count.
Match Frequency by Book
Match Frequency by Book: shows percentage of total matches from the search per Bible book.
Match Frequency Relative to Book Word Count
Match Frequency Relative to Book Word Count: shows ratio of matches to book word count.

This last one is really good for gauging where a topic is most emphasized in Scripture. We can see that the book of Galatians has a very heavy emphasis on the subject of justification, and that out of the whole Bible it uses the words the most (proportionally).

You can build your word count statistics with as many or few words as you like, or even use exact-phrases.