Natural Language Bible Search
SwordSearcher 10 introduces a powerful new way to search the Bible: natural language search. Instead of thinking in keywords, just describe what you're looking for—in your own words.
Search for ideas, topics, and concepts using everyday language and questions:
- help in hard times
- comfort for those who are grieving
- verses about God's love for sinners
- God cares for me more than the birds
This is a semantic search that finds verses by meaning, not just keywords. It's also incredibly useful when you vaguely recall a verse and want to find it. Results are ranked by relevance, with the best matches shown first.
Find Verses About is a dedicated search window for natural language Bible searching. Verse matches update instantly as you type, and you can load results into a full verse list panel for deeper study.
Natural language search is also integrated into the main search bar. Type a phrase like "verses about forgiveness" and SwordSearcher automatically detects it as a natural language query.
Text-to-Speech
SwordSearcher 10 includes built-in text-to-speech that can read aloud the contents of any panel. Each panel has a speaker button to start playback, or use the right-click menu.
Find Similar Verses
The Find Related Verses tool has been renamed to Find Similar Verses and now includes a new "By Similarity" tab that uses semantic search to find similar verses—in addition to the existing keyword-based method.
New Study Library Modules
- Hymns and Spiritual Songs — A collection of nearly 1,500 hymns from the 18th and 19th centuries, with full lyrics, author attribution, and scripture references integrated with SwordSearcher's cross-referencing system.
- Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments — by Rev. Joseph Benson (1749–1821). Once the official commentary of the Methodist church.
- Hamilton Smith's Expository Bible Commentary — Compiled from the published works of Hamilton Smith (1862–1943), covering 56 of 66 Bible books.
- William Kelly's Bible Commentary — Compiled from the lectures and expository notes of William Kelly (1821–1906), spanning nearly the entire Bible.
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