μοι (moi) in Revelation 22:1: P-1DS
μοι (moi) in Revelation 22:1
Textual Witness
The witness reads μοι in Revelation 22:1, within the clause καὶ ἔδειξέ μοι καθαρὸν ποταμὸν ὕδατος.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The dative pronoun narrows the clause to a personal act of showing, making the revelation feel directly received by the narrator.
How To Communicate It
In translation and explanation, it is best rendered simply as 'to me' or 'me' in context, since the grammar highlights the recipient of the action.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The pronoun identifies the recipient of the showing, but it does not by itself control the whole meaning of the vision.
- Do not turn dative case or pronoun person into a claim beyond what the verse and clause actually state.
What Does The Label Mean?
Pronoun: this form names the speaker or referent in a personal way, rather than naming a thing or action.
Dative: this form commonly marks the indirect object or the person receiving the action in context.
Singular: the form is grammatically singular here, pointing to one referent in the scene.
Common in this pronoun: the form itself does not carry a masculine or feminine gender claim, since person reference is supplied by context.
What The Form Does In This Verse
It is attached to ἔδειξέ and follows the verb closely.
The verb of showing governs the dative pronoun, so the form marks the one to whom the vision is shown.
It functions as the recipient of the action: the speaker or seer is the one being shown the river.
It does not name the river, and it does not itself express possession, subjecthood, or emphasis beyond the local context.
How Much The Form Matters Here
Moderate: The dative pronoun identifies John as the recipient of the vision being shown.
First-person singular dative recipient. marks the seer as the one to whom the river is shown. Attached to the verb of showing. Governed by the vision-report verb. The form identifies the recipient, while the object shown is named elsewhere in the clause.
To whom is the river shown? It is shown to John, the speaker or seer.
Direct: The dative pronoun directly supports English wording such as 'showed me.'
The pronoun does not identify the river or the one showing it; those roles come from the surrounding clause.
Dative always implies possession: The dative here marks the recipient of the showing, not ownership of what is shown.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads μοι in Revelation 22:1, within the clause καὶ ἔδειξέ μοι καθαρὸν ποταμὸν ὕδατος.
The lemma ἐγώ here appears in an enclitic dative singular form, which is the normal pronoun form for a recipient or indirect object.
Placed after ἔδειξέ, the pronoun naturally marks the one shown the river, so the sentence focuses on received revelation rather than on the pronoun itself.
The verse presents the vision as personally given to the seer: a clear river of life is shown to him.
This use fits the broader apocalyptic pattern of a witness receiving and describing revealed sights without requiring extra theological weight from the pronoun form.
For readers and teachers, the form helps communicate that the vision is directed to the speaker in the narrative, not merely reported in the abstract.
Do not derive gendered theology, special emphasis, or a change in lemma from this case form alone.