φῶς
light
‘light’ is one of 2 main senses fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Thayer's Greek Lexicon
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon
Where this word appears
See every Nominative-case word in the Greek New Testament →
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Case
- Nominative
- The case of the subject (and the predicate nominative).
- Accusative
- The case of the direct object and of extent.
- Genitive
- The case of source, possession, or “of” — answers “whose / from what.”
- Dative
- The case of the indirect object, means, or location — “to / for / with / in.”
Gender
- Neuter
- Grammatically neuter.
Number
- Singular
- One.
- Plural
- More than one.
3 verses where G5457 appears in the Genitive case in the Book of John. Filtered view — show all forms. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Greek form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Greek New Testament; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences of this word are not indexed here.
John
- John 1:7 φωτός n gen sg neut The same came as a witness, that he might testify about the light, that all might believe through him.
- John 1:8 φῶς φωτός n nom sg neut n gen sg neut He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light.
- John 12:36 φῶς φῶς φωτὸς n acc sg neut n acc sg neut n gen sg neut While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light." Jesus said these things, and he departed and hid himself from them.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
The Greek noun φως centers on the idea of “light.” Its earliest occurrence is Matthew 4:16. The Greek New Testament uses it across 60 verses — moderately common. John dominates its distribution — 16 of 60 verses. Thayer's distinguishes 2 senses for it. Dig into 60-verse concordance and the renderings breakdown below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's G5457 catalogs a Greek word from the Greek New Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Greek New Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 60
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 60 distinct verses.
- 15 / 27
- NT books
- The word appears in 15 of 27 New Testament books.
- #235
- by frequency
- Top 250 most frequent Greek words (rank 235 of 5,347 Greek words by occurrence).
View all 60 occurrences in the concordance →
By section of the New Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Some books belong to more than one corpus (Luke is in both the Gospels and the Lukan corpus, and so on), so these shares overlap and need not total 100%. Each figure is a share of the word’s 60 distinct verses.
- Gospels 29 verses · 48%
- Johannine 24 verses · 40%
- Lukan (Luke–Acts) 16 verses · 27%
- Pauline corpus 11 verses · 18%
- General (Catholic) Epistles 7 verses · 12%
- Revelation 3 verses · 5%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Light 65×, Fire 2×
- American Standard Version: Light 62×, Lights 2×
- Berean Standard Bible: Light 64×, Daylight 2×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Light 69×, A 2×, Lights 2×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders G5457 across 70 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders G5457 across 69 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders G5457 across 71 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 5 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings. Not rendered by a distinct English word in 1 further occurrence.
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders G5457 across 78 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Plus 3 renderings that appear only once — usually multi-word phrases or single function words the recovered tagging swept in, not distinct renderings.
Senses in Thayer's
The 2 senses Thayer's distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- light
- metaph.
Word origin
Derived from φαινω (phaínō) (G5316) — to shine.
Forms in the corpus
The 7 distinct written forms G5457 takes in the Greek New Testament, most frequent first — each parse links to that case’s occurrences in the concordance.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| φῶς phō̂s | Noun, Nominative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 4:16 | 47 |
| φωτὸς phōtòs | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Neuter | Luke 16:8 | 9 |
| φωτὶ phōtì | Noun, Dative, Singular, Neuter | Luke 12:3 | 6 |
| φωτός phōtós | Noun, Genitive, Singular, Neuter | John 1:7 | 5 |
| φωτί phōtí | Noun, Dative, Singular, Neuter | Matthew 10:27 | 3 |
| φώτων phṓtōn | Noun, Genitive, Plural, Neuter | James 1:17 | 1 |
| φῶτα phō̂ta | Noun, Accusative, Plural, Neuter | Acts 16:29 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other Thayer's entries built from the same root as G5457, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
- φανερος phanerós G5318 evident
- φανος phanós G5322 torch
- φανταζω phantázō G5324 to show
- φελονης phelónēs G5341 cloak
- φωνη phōnḗ G5456 voice
Derived from this word
- φαινω phaínō G5316 to shine
- φεγγος phéngos G5338 light
- φημι phēmí G5346 to declare
- φωστηρ phōstḗr G5458 light-giver
- φωσφορος phōsphóros G5459 morning star
- φωτεινος phōteinós G5460 light
- φωτιζω phōtízō G5461 to enlighten
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 14 — not the complete family. 1 of the same-root words is a proper name (a person or place). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Septuagint usage
The same Greek word φως appears 129 times in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), across 118 verses in 24 books.
- 129
- LXX occurrences
- Tagged occurrences of this Greek word in the Septuagint.
- 118
- verses
- Distinct Septuagint verses containing this word.
- 24 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 24 of the 39 Old Testament books.
Sample Septuagint occurrences
- Genesis 1:3 φῶς
- Exodus 10:23 φῶς
- Leviticus 24:2 φῶς
- Numbers 4:16 φῶς
- 1 Samuel 25:34 φῶς
- 2 Samuel 17:22 φῶς
- 2 Kings 7:9 φῶς
- 2 Chronicles 4:20 φῶς
- Esther 8:16 φῶς
- Job 3:16 φῶς
- Psalms 4:7 φῶς
- Proverbs 4:18 φῶς
Septuagint occurrences (same lexeme)
Every verse where the same Strong’s number (G5457) appears in the Greek Septuagint — showing the first 50 of 118. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context; the Greek form is the matched word — the English is not keyword-highlighted.
- Genesis 1:3 φῶς God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
- Genesis 1:4 φῶς God saw the light, and saw that it was good. God divided the light from the darkness.
- Genesis 1:5 φῶς God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. There was evening and there was morning, one day.
- Genesis 1:18 φῶς and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
- Exodus 10:23 φῶς They didn't see one another, neither did anyone rise from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.
- Exodus 27:20 φῶς "You shall command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.
- Exodus 35:14 φῶς the lampstand also for the light, with its vessels, its lamps, and the oil for the light;
- Exodus 39:16 φῶς They made two settings of gold, and two gold rings, and put the two rings on the two ends of the breastplate.
- Leviticus 24:2 φῶς "Command the children of Israel, that they bring to you pure olive oil beaten for the light, to cause a lamp to burn continually.
- Numbers 4:16 φῶς "The charge of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest shall be the oil for the light, the sweet incense, the continual meal offering, and the anointing oil, the charge of all the tabernacle, and of all that is in it, the sanctuary, and its furnishings."
- 1 Samuel 25:34 φῶς For in very deed, as Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, who has withheld me from hurting you, except you had hurried and come to meet me, surely there wouldn't have been left to Nabal by the morning light so much as one man-child.
- 1 Samuel 25:36 φῶς Abigail came to Nabal; and, behold, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry within him, for he was very drunken: therefore she told him nothing, less or more, until the morning light.
- 2 Samuel 17:22 φῶς Then David arose, and all the people who were with him, and they passed over the Jordan: by the morning light there lacked not one of them who had not gone over the Jordan.
- 2 Samuel 23:4 φῶς [He shall be] as the light of the morning, when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, [When] the tender grass [springs] out of the earth, Through clear shining after rain.
- 2 Kings 7:9 φῶς Then they said one to another, We aren't doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we hold our peace: if we wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us; now therefore come, let us go and tell the king's household.
- 2 Chronicles 4:20 φῶς and the lampstands with their lamps, to burn according to the ordinance before the oracle, of pure gold;
- Esther 8:16 φῶς The Jews had light and gladness, and joy and honor.
- Job 3:16 φῶς Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants who never saw light.
- Job 3:20 φῶς "Why is light given to him who is in misery, Life to the bitter in soul,
- Job 12:22 φῶς He uncovers deep things out of darkness, And brings out to light the shadow of death.
- Job 12:25 φῶς They grope in the dark without light. He makes them stagger like a drunken man.
- Job 17:12 φῶς They change the night into day, Saying 'The light is near' in the presence of darkness.
- Job 18:5 φῶς "Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, The spark of his fire shall not shine.
- Job 18:6 φῶς The light shall be dark in his tent, His lamp above him shall be put out.
- Job 18:18 φῶς He shall be driven from light into darkness, And chased out of the world.
- Job 22:11 φῶς Or darkness, so that you can not see, And floods of waters cover you.
- Job 24:16 φῶς In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don't know the light.
- Job 26:10 φῶς He has described a boundary on the surface of the waters, And to the confines of light and darkness.
- Job 28:11 φῶς He binds the streams that they don't trickle; The thing that is hidden he brings forth to light.
- Job 29:3 φῶς When his lamp shone on my head, And by his light I walked through darkness;
- Job 29:24 φῶς I smiled on them when they had no confidence. They didn't reject the light of my face.
- Job 33:28 φῶς He has redeemed my soul from going into the pit, My life shall see the light.'
- Job 33:30 φῶς To bring back his soul from the pit, That he may be enlightened with the light of the living.
- Job 36:32 φῶς He covers his hands with the lightning, And commands it to strike the mark.
- Job 37:3 φῶς He sends it forth under the whole sky, And his lightning to the ends of the earth.
- Job 37:11 φῶς Yes, he loads the thick cloud with moisture. He spreads abroad the cloud of his lightning.
- Job 37:15 φῶς Do you know how God controls them, And causes the lightning of his cloud to shine?
- Job 37:21 φῶς Now men don't see the light which is bright in the skies, But the wind passes, and clears them.
- Job 38:15 φῶς From the wicked, their light is withheld, The high arm is broken.
- Job 38:19 φῶς "What is the way to the dwelling of light? As for darkness, where is the place of it,
- Psalms 4:7 φῶς You have put gladness in my heart, More than when their grain and their new wine are increased.
- Psalms 35:10 φῶς All my bones shall say, "Yahweh, who is like you, Who delivers the poor from him who is too strong for him, Yes, the poor and the needy from him who robs him?"
- Psalms 36:6 φῶς Your righteousness is like the mountains of God. Your judgments are like a great deep. Yahweh, you preserve man and animal.
- Psalms 37:11 φῶς But the humble shall inherit the land, And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
- Psalms 42:3 φῶς My tears have been my food day and night, While they continually ask me, "Where is your God?"
- Psalms 48:20 φῶς
- Psalms 55:14 φῶς We took sweet fellowship together. We walked in God's house with company.
- Psalms 88:16 φῶς Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.
- Psalms 96:11 φῶς Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and it's fullness!
- Psalms 103:2 φῶς Praise Yahweh, my soul, And don't forget all his benefits;
These are occurrences of the same Greek lexeme (G5457) in the Septuagint — not a translation of any one Hebrew word. The store carries no word-level Hebrew↔Greek alignment, so no Hebrew original is asserted here. Counts come from the recovered LXX Strong's tagging — high-frequency vocabulary is well covered, while rare or late forms may be untagged — so they reflect tagged occurrences and may slightly undercount.
