To assert
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G5346 is a verb of saying, affirming, or asserting. The governed witness uses its sixty-six forms to introduce direct replies, remembered speech, questions, confessions, accusations, scriptural citations, legal exchanges, and apostolic argument.
Reader summary
Full entry for φημί (G5346) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5346 is a verb of saying, affirming, or asserting. The governed witness uses its sixty-six forms to introduce direct replies, remembered speech, questions, confessions, accusations, scriptural citations, legal exchanges, and apostolic argument.
The BSB source-word alignment has 66 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include said (13), replied (10), he said (6), [and] said (4), he replied (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 4:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (25), Matthew (16), Luke (8), Mark (6).
This entry includes 2 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
G5346 is a verb of saying, affirming, or asserting. The governed witness uses its sixty-six forms to introduce direct replies, remembered speech, questions, confessions, accusations, scriptural citations, legal exchanges, and apostolic argument. The verb identifies an act of speech; it does not certify the speaker's truthfulness, faithfulness, authority, or motive.
Jesus, disciples, healed people, officials, opponents, narrators, and apostles all appear as speakers. Teachers should therefore ask who speaks, to whom, under what pressure, and how the surrounding sentence evaluates the words. Luke 22:58 contains two separate forms, so the exact token count is one greater than the selected artifact's verse-grouped total. That numerical difference does not create another meaning or identity.
Application should address truthful witness, careful listening, confession, and accountable speech without treating every assertion as inspired, forcing public disclosure, or using a speaker's words apart from their narrative and argumentative setting.
Across nine New Testament books, G5346 marks acts of saying in narrative dialogue, judicial exchange, scriptural citation, confession, denial, accusation, and apostolic reasoning. Its force comes from the speaker, addressee, syntax, and passage rather than from a morally weighted speech gloss.
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
John the Baptist answers by placing himself under Isaiah's witness. The verb serves a clear public reply that directs attention to the Lord.
“Lord, I believe,” he said. And he worshiped Jesus.
The healed man answers with confessed faith and worship. The saying is brief, but in context it marks a movement from sight to believing allegiance.
So Pilate went out to them and asked, “What accusation are you bringing against this man?”
Pilate's opening question begins the public trial scene. The speech verb introduces judicial inquiry, not faithful confession.
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. to assert
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 58 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
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Read verseI say
Read verseI say
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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 65 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)
φημί is built from these roots:
G5346 makes spoken claims visible without deciding whether they are true. In the Gospels and Acts it moves dialogue through replies, questions, confessions, denials, accusations, and legal exchanges. In letters it can introduce reported claims, scriptural reasons, or argumentative assertions. John the Baptist answers from Isaiah, a healed man confesses faith, Pilate questions accusers, Stephen begins a defense, and Paul reports a slanderous statement only to reject it.
The word therefore trains readers to distinguish quotation from endorsement and speech from truth. Teachers should examine speaker, audience, pressure, and surrounding evaluation. Pastoral application can encourage honest witness and accountable communication, but it must not force disclosure, presume sincerity, silence contested testimony, or detach anyone's words from the passage that interprets them.
John.1.23
The governed witness has sixty-six active indicative forms in sixty-five verses: forty-three imperfect third-person singulars, eighteen present third-person singulars, four present first-person singulars, and one present third-person plural. Luke 22:58 contains two imperfect forms. The morphology marks speaker and presentation, while truth and force remain contextual.
Scripture repeatedly weighs speech by truth, covenant responsibility, and its effect on neighbors. G5346 contributes narrated and argued acts of saying, while the cited quotations and contexts determine whether the speech witnesses, questions, denies, accuses, or reasons faithfully.