A denarius (or ten asses)
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Denarion names the denarius, a Roman silver coin that commonly represented a day wage in ordinary economic speech. The word gives the New Testament a concrete way to speak about cost, debt, tax, wages, scarcity, mercy, and judgment.
Reader summary
Full entry for δηνάριον (G1220) · Open the biblical lexicon
Denarion names the denarius, a Roman silver coin that commonly represented a day wage in ordinary economic speech. The word gives the New Testament a concrete way to speak about cost, debt, tax, wages, scarcity, mercy, and judgment.
The BSB source-word alignment has 16 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include denarii (7), a denarius (6), for a denarius (2), on one denarius (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 18:28. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (6), Luke (3), Mark (3), John (2).
Denarion names the denarius, a Roman silver coin that commonly represented a day wage in ordinary economic speech. The word gives the New Testament a concrete way to speak about cost, debt, tax, wages, scarcity, mercy, and judgment. Philip calculates that two hundred denarii would not feed the crowd, and Judas names three hundred denarii while pretending concern for the poor.
Jesus' parables use the coin to expose labor expectations and debt relationships. The tax question places a denarius in Jesus' hand as a public test about Caesar and God. The good Samaritan leaves two denarii for costly mercy, while Revelation uses the coin to show famine-level scarcity. The word is never merely financial data; each passage asks what money reveals about faith, worship, justice, or need.
Denarion makes value measurable in scenes where Jesus and the apostles expose the limits of calculation. A denarius can name wages, cost, tax, debt, mercy, or scarcity, but the moral force comes from the passage.
Philip answered, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to have a small piece.”
Philip measures the crowd's hunger by denarii and shows the insufficiency of ordinary resources before Jesus feeds them.
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
Judas uses a large denarius figure to sound charitable, but John exposes theft and false piety behind the calculation.
He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
The vineyard owner agrees on a denarius for the day, making the coin the agreed wage before the parable tests assumptions about grace and fairness.
Show Me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought Him a denarius.
Jesus asks for the tax coin and receives a denarius, turning a political trap toward the claims of Caesar and the claims of God.
The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he said, ‘and on my return I will repay you for any additional expense.’
The Samaritan's two denarii make mercy concrete, costly, and ongoing rather than sentimental.
And I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living creatures, saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine.”
The denarius marks severe scarcity, where a day's wage barely secures basic grain under judgment pressure.
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.
Greek word. Roman coin representing a day's typical wage for a laborer, used to illustrate economic value.
Roman coin representing a day's typical wage for a laborer, used to illustrate economic value.
the Lat. denarius, a Roman coin, nearly equal to the δραχμή, which see: Mat.18:28 20:2, 9, 13 22:19, Mrk.6:37 12:15 14:5, Luk.7:41 10:35 20:24, Jhn.6:7 12:5, Rev.6:6; τὸ ἀνὰ δ., Mat.20:10.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a denarius
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Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
Read versea denarius
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 this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 4 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 16 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Denarion teaches that a coin can make a spiritual issue visible without becoming the spiritual issue itself. In John 6, Philip's number is honest arithmetic before impossible need; Jesus' provision exceeds it. In John 12, Judas' number sounds prudent, but his heart is corrupt. In Matthew 20, the denarius is a fair wage that becomes a test of resentment when generosity appears.
In Matthew 22, the image on the coin opens a question about ordered allegiance. In Luke 10, mercy costs real money and promises continued care. In Revelation 6, the coin exposes economic distress under judgment. The word therefore resists both money worship and money dismissal. It calls teachers to ask what the measurable cost reveals about trust, love, justice, and the kingdom of God.
John.6.7
Denarion is a concrete monetary noun. Its meaning stays stable as a coin, but its teaching force shifts with the scene: wage, price, tax coin, debt amount, mercy provision, or famine marker.
Scripture often uses ordinary measures to expose the heart: scales, wages, debts, offerings, and costly mercy. Denarion belongs to that canonical pattern. It lets a teacher move from material calculation to the deeper question of whether money is serving justice, mercy, worship, or self-protection.
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