To hear (in various senses)
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Ἀκούω is a Greek verb meaning to hear, listen, receive by hearing, heed, or understand what is heard. It can describe physical perception, receiving testimony, attending to a command, or hearing in a way that calls for response.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀκούω (G191) · Open the biblical lexicon
Ἀκούω is a Greek verb meaning to hear, listen, receive by hearing, heed, or understand what is heard. It can describe physical perception, receiving testimony, attending to a command, or hearing in a way that calls for response.
The BSB source-word alignment has 428 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include heard (44), I heard (26), hear (24), You have heard (19), to hear (17).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 2:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (89), Luke (65), Matthew (63), John (59).
This entry includes 7 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Ἀκούω is a Greek verb meaning to hear, listen, receive by hearing, heed, or understand what is heard. It can describe physical perception, receiving testimony, attending to a command, or hearing in a way that calls for response. The surrounding speaker, message, and response determine its force.
At the transfiguration, the Father directs the disciples to listen to His beloved Son. In John 5:24, Jesus joins hearing His word with believing the Father who sent Him and receiving eternal life. Revelation repeatedly summons the churches to hear what the Spirit says. First John presents apostolic proclamation as a message heard from Christ, announced to the church, and kept from the beginning. These passages do not turn hearing into a work that earns life. They show that God's word confronts hearers with the truth of Christ and calls for faith, perseverance, and obedience appropriate to the text.
The verb must not be flattened into either bare sound or automatic obedience. A person may hear words without welcoming them, while another passage may use hearing for receptive faith or faithful attention. Teachers should ask who speaks, what is heard, how the passage describes the response, and whether the emphasis falls on perception, testimony, belief, warning, or obedience.
Akouo is currently counted about 427 times in the local Greek artifact. It can mean hear, listen, receive testimony, heed, or understand what is heard.
Then a cloud appeared and enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!”
The voice from the cloud commands, Listen to Him. The verb becomes a call to receive the Son.
Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life.
The one who hears Jesus' word and believes has eternal life. Hearing is joined to believing response.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will grant the right to eat from the tree of life in the Paradise of God.
The one with an ear must hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The verb serves covenant warning and promise.
And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
John announces the message heard from Him. The verb supports apostolic witness.
As for you, let what you have heard from the beginning remain in you. If it does, you will also remain in the Son and in the Father.
What the readers heard from the beginning must remain in them. Hearing becomes received apostolic teaching to abide in.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Hearing that demands obedient response, not mere acoustic perception of sound
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 437 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseI hear, listen
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
How this verb appears across 411 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 6 selected witnesses from 427 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀκούω is a primary verb - no further derivation.
Calls for obedient submission to Christ.Luke 8:16–18
Defines responsible reception of revelation.Luke 8:19–21
Represents continuous reception of divine revelation.Mark 9:2–8
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G191 helps teachers distinguish hearing a sound from receiving a word with accountable attention. At the transfiguration, the Father commands the disciples to hear the Son, so Christian listening begins under Christ's authority. John 5 joins hearing Jesus' word with believing the Father and receiving life, without making the physical act of hearing a saving work.
Revelation addresses whole churches that must listen, repent, endure, and overcome. First John grounds proclamation in what the apostles heard from Christ and calls believers to let that received message remain in them. The pastoral question is therefore not merely whether words reached the ear. It is whether the passage presents perception, testimony, faith, warning, obedience, or perseverance, and how the hearer stands before the One who speaks.
Mark.9.7
Akouo can take different objects and constructions. Context decides whether the emphasis is hearing sound, receiving a message, heeding a command, or understanding testimony.
Israel's repeated summons to hear the Lord prepares for the Father's command to hear His Son. The canonical movement does not erase the ordinary sense of hearing; it shows the covenant weight of receiving God's revealed word.