A Bible concordance is a concordance, or verbal index, to the Bible. A simple form lists Biblical words alphabetically, with indications to enable the inquirer to find the passages of the Bible where the words occur.

Concordances may be for the original languages of the Biblical books, or (more commonly) they are compiled for translations.

Friars of the Dominican order invented the verbal concordance of the Bible. As the basis of their work they used the text of the Vulgate, the standard Bible of the Middle Ages in Western Europe. The first concordance, completed in 1230, was undertaken under the guidance of Cardinal Hugo de Saint-Cher (Hugo de Sancto Charo), assisted by fellow Dominicans.

It contained short quotations (see Saint-Omer, Bibliothèque municipale, p. 28) of the passages where a word was found. These were indicated by book and chapter (the division into chapters had recently been made by Stephen Langton) but not by verses, which Robert Estienne would first introduce in 1545. In lieu of verses, Hugo divided each chapter into seven almost equal parts, indicated by the letters of the alphabet, a, b, c, etc.

Three English Dominicans (1250–1252) added the complete quotations of the passages indicated. Due to lack of space, present-day concordances do not aim for this completeness of quotation; it is likely, therefore, that the passages indicated were far fewer than those found in a complete concordance of today. The work was somewhat abridged, by retaining only the essential words of a quotation, in the 1310 concordance of Conrad of Halberstadt, another Dominican – his work obtained great success on account of its more convenient form.

The first concordance to be printed appeared in 1470 at Strasburg, and reached a second edition in 1475. The larger work from which it was abridged was printed at Nuremberg in 1485. Another Dominican, John Stoicowic (also known as John of Ragusa), finding it necessary in his controversies to show the Biblical usage of nisi, ex, and per, which were omitted from the previous concordances, began (c. 1435) the compilation of nearly all the indeclinable words of Latin scripture; the task was completed and perfected by others and finally added as an appendix to the concordance of Conrad of Halberstadt in the work of Sebastian Brant published at Basle in 1496. Brant's work was frequently republished and in various cities. It served as the basis of the concordance published in 1555 by Robert Estienne. Estienne added proper names, supplied omissions, mingled the indeclinable words with the others in alphabetical order, and gave the indications to all passages by verse as well as by chapter, bringing his work much closer to the present model of concordances. Since then many different Latin concordances have been published:

Peter Mintert's "Lexicon Græco-Latinum" of the New Testament is a concordance as well as a lexicon, giving the Latin equivalent of the Greek and, in the case of Septuagint words, the Hebrew equivalent also (Frankfort, 1728).

The first Hebrew concordance (Meïr Netib) was the work of Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus, begun in 1438 and finished in 1448. It was inspired by the Latin concordances to aid in defence of Judaism, and was printed in Venice in 1523. An improved edition of it by a Franciscan friar, Mario di Calasio, was published in 1621 and 1622 in four volumes. Both these works were several times reprinted, while another Hebrew concordance of the sixteenth century, by Elias Levita, said to surpass Nathan's in many respects, remained in manuscript.