Lamb in the Bible: 188 KJV Mentions and the Lamb of God

The KJV says “lamb” 107 times and “lambs” 81 times, 188 in all. Most are lambs offered to God, 69 of them in Numbers alone. In Scripture the lamb is a life given for others, and the Bible gives that name to Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

The first time the Bible speaks of a single lamb, Isaac is asking where it is. Abraham’s son, whom the story calls “the lad”, climbs the mountain beside his father, carrying the wood, and says, “Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham answers, “My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together” (Genesis 22:7–8). That day God gave a ram caught in a thicket. But Isaac’s question stays in the air for a very long time, through every morning and evening sacrifice, every Passover, every prophet. It is answered beyond the Jordan, when a man dressed in camel’s hair sees Jesus coming toward him.

In the King James Version, “lamb” comes 107 times and “lambs” 81 times, in 175 verses. The Old Testament has 153 of the 188 and the New Testament 35. The lambs gather in a few books:

Book	“lamb”	“lambs”	Best known
Numbers	28	41	Offerings for feasts and the altar
Revelation	29	0	Jesus, “the Lamb”
Leviticus	17	4	Laws of sacrifice
Exodus	12	1	The Passover and the daily offering
Ezekiel	3	7	Offerings in the new temple
Isaiah	5	4	The suffering servant; the wolf and the lamb

The phrase “Lamb of God” itself comes only twice, both from John the Baptist, on two days running (John 1:29 and 1:36). Of the 33 times the New Testament says “lamb”, every one but one points to Jesus. The exception is the beast of Revelation 13:11, which “had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon”, a lamb only on the outside.

These numbers count the words “lamb” and “lambs” in the King James text, so they will not match every Bible. If you read in Spanish, the Reina-Valera 1960 says cordero 96 times and corderos 76 times, 172 in all; in Portuguese, the Almeida Revista e Corrigida says cordeiro 100 times and cordeiros 86 times, 186 in all. Translators sometimes write “sheep” or “kid” where another Bible says “lamb”, and the totals move a little each time.

Behind the English stand a few Hebrew and Greek words. The commonest is kebes, which Strong’s dictionary defines as a young ram “just old enough to butt”; the King James translators render it “lamb” 105 times. Another, seh, means any one animal of the flock, “a sheep or goat”. The Passover “lamb” itself could be taken “from the sheep, or from the goats” (Exodus 12:5). In the New Testament, amnos is used four times, all of Jesus, and arnion, “a little lamb”, 30 times, 29 of them in Revelation.

Because God asked for them, every day. “Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar; two lambs of the first year day by day continually. The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even” (Exodus 29:38–39). Numbers counts out lambs twice over. Chapter 7 has 26, among the gifts each tribe’s prince brought “for the dedicating of the altar” (Numbers 7:11). Chapters 28 and 29 have 38, the lambs for each Sabbath, new moon and feast. A lamb “without spot” was the price of coming near.

The law also made room for the poor. A mother after childbirth was to bring “a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering”, but “if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons” (Leviticus 12:6–8). When Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple, they offered “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons” (Luke 2:24). It seems they could not afford a lamb. They had brought one anyway, in their arms.

The altar was never meant to stand alone. Through Isaiah, God tells people whose “hands are full of blood” that he does not delight “in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats”, and asks instead, “cease to do evil; Learn to do well” (Isaiah 1:11–17). Hebrews goes further: “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). Morning and evening the lambs went up, and Isaac’s question stayed open.

It meant a household spared. On the night Israel left Egypt, each family took “a lamb for an house”, a male “without blemish”, killed it at evening and struck its blood on the doorposts. “When I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you” (Exodus 12:3–13). They ate it in haste, dressed for the road, with “your staff in your hand”. And the night was to be kept for ever: “this day shall be unto you for a memorial” (Exodus 12:14).

Jewish families still keep it. With no temple, no lamb is sacrificed. Instead the Seder plate carries the zeroa, a roasted shankbone or other piece of meat, whose name means “arm” and recalls God’s promise to redeem Israel “with an outstretched arm”. Chabad.org explains, “A piece of roasted meat represents the lamb that was the special paschal sacrifice on the eve of the exodus from Egypt, and annually on the afternoon before Passover in the Holy Temple.” It is not eaten. There is more on the feast itself in what Passover represents in the Bible.

The first Christians heard the Passover in the death of Jesus. Paul writes, “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7). John notes that Pilate brought Jesus out to the crowd on “the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour” (John 19:14), and that at the cross the soldiers “brake not his legs” (John 19:33), “that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken” (John 19:36), words that echo the Passover rule, “neither shall ye break a bone thereof” (Exodus 12:46). In the second century Justin Martyr, who died a martyr in Rome about 165, wrote that “the mystery, then, of the lamb which God enjoined to be sacrificed as the passover, was a type of Christ”. He even saw the cross in the way the lamb was roasted, with one spit run up through it to the head and another across its back.

Because he is the lamb God provided. John the Baptist sees Jesus coming and says, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Abraham had said God would provide himself a lamb, and here he is, walking toward John beyond the Jordan.

Isaiah had drawn his portrait centuries before. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). Two verses earlier come the words, “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities”. When an Ethiopian official, riding home from Jerusalem and reading this chapter in his chariot, asked Philip whom the prophet meant, Philip “began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus” (Acts 8:32–35).

Peter puts it in the language of a ransom. We were “not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold”, he writes, “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19). How that ransom works is a question the churches have explained in different ways, and propitiation is one of its key words. Abraham’s promise stands behind all of them: God would provide the lamb himself.

Because the one who reigns there is the one who was slain. In his vision on Patmos, John is told to look at a lion: “behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed”. He looks, and sees instead “a Lamb as it had been slain”, standing “in the midst of the throne” (Revelation 5:5–6). The elders around the throne sing, “Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain” (Revelation 5:9), and ten thousand times ten thousand angels answer, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing” (Revelation 5:12). The two titles meet in why Jesus is called the Lion of Judah.

From there the Lamb runs through the book to its last page. A multitude “which no man could number” stands “before the throne, and before the Lamb”, having “washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9, 7:14). Kings make war on him, “and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings” (Revelation 17:14). There is a wedding: “Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). And in the city to come there is no temple and no sun, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it”, and “the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:22–23). The river of life flows “out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).

Not in those words. Isaiah writes, “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). Later he says, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock” (Isaiah 65:25). The familiar saying folds the two verses into one. Both promise the same thing, a world where nothing is hunted any more.

John the Baptist’s words are sung and spoken in churches every Sunday. In the Catholic Mass, just before Communion, the people sing the Agnus Dei: “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: have mercy on us”, twice, and the third time, “grant us peace”. Then the priest invites them to Communion: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb”, joining John 1:29 to Revelation 19:9. Lutherans sing the same prayer; the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod’s hymnal, Lutheran Service Book, gives it two settings. Anglicans who pray the 1662 Book of Common Prayer meet it in the Gloria at the end of Communion: “O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.”

In the Orthodox Divine Liturgy, the priest preparing the bread cuts a cube from the loaf while saying Isaiah’s words, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter”, and, as an article kept by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia explains, “This portion, called the Lamb and consecrated later in the Liturgy, is placed on the diskos.”

The Baptist said it twice. The second time, the next day, he simply watched Jesus walk by and said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Isaac had asked where the lamb was, and here was the answer, walking past. Then Scripture adds a quiet line: “And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus” (John 1:36–37).

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• What Is Passover and What Does It Represent in the Bible?
• Why Is Jesus Called the Lion of Judah?
• What Is Propitiation?
• 23 Bible Verses About the Blood of Jesus
• What Do Goats Symbolize in the Bible?