A fish
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Ichthys means fish. In the New Testament it usually appears in ordinary food, work, and creation settings: a child asking for a fish, disciples counting fish and loaves, fishermen hauling a great catch, the risen Jesus receiving broiled fish, and Paul naming fish as one kind of flesh within creation.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἰχθύς (G2486) · Open the biblical lexicon
Ichthys means fish. In the New Testament it usually appears in ordinary food, work, and creation settings: a child asking for a fish, disciples counting fish and loaves, fishermen hauling a great catch, the risen Jesus receiving broiled fish, and Paul naming fish as one kind of flesh within creation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 20 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include fish (16), a fish (2), . . . (1), of fish (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 7:10. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (7), Matthew (5), Mark (4), John (3).
Ichthys means fish. In the New Testament it usually appears in ordinary food, work, and creation settings: a child asking for a fish, disciples counting fish and loaves, fishermen hauling a great catch, the risen Jesus receiving broiled fish, and Paul naming fish as one kind of flesh within creation. The word is not itself a coded title for Christ in the biblical text, even though later Christian symbolism used fish imagery.
In Scripture's own usage, ichthys helps readers notice creaturely provision, embodied need, resurrection physicality, and the ordinary material world under God's care. Jesus feeds crowds with fish, teaches fishermen through a catch, and eats after His resurrection. The word keeps miracles and hope attached to real bodies, real food, and real creation.
Ichthys means fish. The selected passages use fish as food, catch, creaturely kind, and resurrection evidence, keeping God's provision and Christ's risen life embodied.
“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
The disciples name their meager supply of two fish before Jesus feeds the crowd.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, Jesus spoke a blessing and broke the loaves. Then He gave them to His disciples to set before the people. And He divided the two fish among them all.
Jesus blesses and distributes fish with bread, providing for the gathered people.
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to tear.
The great catch overwhelms the nets and reorients fishermen before Jesus' call.
So they gave Him a piece of broiled fish,
The risen Jesus receives broiled fish, underscoring the bodily reality of His resurrection.
He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish.
The post-resurrection catch in John 21 shows abundance under Jesus' command.
Not all flesh is the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another.
Paul names fish as a distinct kind of flesh within the diversity of created bodies.
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. A fish; used symbolically in early Christianity as an acrostic for "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 20 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a fish
Read versea fish
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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 this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 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 1 selected witness from 20 lexical occurrence verses.
ἰχθύς is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Ichthys is a simple word that helps Scripture keep faith close to bodily life. Hungry crowds need real food. Fishermen know the difference between empty nets and a catch they cannot haul. The risen Jesus does not offer a ghostly spirituality; Luke shows Him receiving broiled fish, and John shows Him commanding a catch after the resurrection. Paul can even use fish as one example of creaturely diversity when discussing resurrection bodies.
The word therefore resists both sentimental symbolism and materialism. Fish are not the Savior, but in these passages they become part of scenes where the Savior provides, calls, proves His bodily life, and teaches readers that creation itself belongs under God's wise care.
John.21.6
Ichthys is a common noun for fish. Its theological use comes from the scene, not from a hidden lexical code. Number, setting, and surrounding verbs matter more than symbol hunting.
Fish belong to the creatures of the waters in Genesis and to ordinary human food in the biblical world. The New Testament feeding and resurrection scenes do not erase that creaturely plainness. Instead, they show the Lord of creation providing through ordinary things and confirming resurrection in embodied life.