A pearl
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The Greek noun margarites means a pearl, a costly object used literally and figuratively in the New Testament. Jesus warns against throwing pearls before pigs within teaching about judgment, discernment, and hypocrisy.
Reader summary
Full entry for μαργαρίτης (G3135) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun margarites means a pearl, a costly object used literally and figuratively in the New Testament. Jesus warns against throwing pearls before pigs within teaching about judgment, discernment, and hypocrisy.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include pearls (7), pearl (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 7:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (5), Matthew (3), 1 Timothy (1).
The Greek noun margarites means a pearl, a costly object used literally and figuratively in the New Testament. Jesus warns against throwing pearls before pigs within teaching about judgment, discernment, and hypocrisy. He compares the kingdom of heaven to a merchant who recognizes one pearl of great value and sells what he has to buy it. First Timothy places pearls among expensive adornments that must not define a woman's godliness, while Revelation describes pearls in both Babylon's corrupt luxury and the gates of the holy city.
The same valuable material can therefore serve discernment, kingdom comparison, social display, exploitative wealth, or renewed-city imagery. The noun does not make material cost morally good or evil by itself. It also does not authorize contemptuous labeling of people as animals, coercive demands to surrender possessions, dress policing focused on women, prosperity promises, or literal cost calculations for the New Jerusalem.
Responsible teaching follows each comparison and contrasts value recognized under God's reign with luxury used for status and commerce that harms others.
Margarites names pearls in sayings about discernment, a kingdom parable, instructions about adornment, Babylon's corrupt luxury, and the jeweled gates of the renewed city.
Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.
Jesus warns against giving what is holy to dogs or casting pearls before pigs within teaching about judgment and discernment.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a merchant searching for fine pearls and recognizing exceptional value.
When he found one very precious pearl, he went away and sold all he had and bought it.
The merchant sells all he has and buys the one costly pearl, completing the parable's focused action.
Likewise, I want the women to adorn themselves with respectable apparel, with modesty, and with self-control, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,
Paul contrasts costly clothing, gold, and pearls with respectable conduct and the good works appropriate to professed godliness.
Cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; of fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; of all kinds of citron wood and every article of ivory, precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble;
Pearls appear in Babylon's luxury cargo within a lament that later includes exploited human lives.
And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, with each gate consisting of a single pearl. The main street of the city was pure gold, as clear as glass.
The renewed city's twelve gates are pictured as pearls within an apocalyptic vision of God's presence and glory.
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. Precious gem symbolizing supreme value or (proverbially) worthless when given to those unable to appreciate it.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
9 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a pearl
Read versea pearl
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Read versea pearl
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 7 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 9 lexical occurrence verses.
Illustrates the singular value of the kingdom.Matthew 13:45–46
Margarites shows that value is interpreted through allegiance and use. In Matthew 7, pearls represent something precious within a difficult warning about discernment; the saying must be read alongside Jesus' prohibition of hypocritical judgment and must not become permission to dehumanize people. In Matthew 13, a merchant recognizes a pearl of exceptional value, and the concentrated action portrays the kingdom's surpassing worth.
The parable is not a fundraising formula, a command to abandon dependents, or a guarantee that sacrifice will produce material profit. First Timothy resists status display by directing attention from costly adornment toward good works, yet the instruction should not be weaponized to shame women's bodies or allow men and leaders unexamined luxury. Revelation places pearls on both Babylon and the New Jerusalem.
Babylon's goods participate in a system whose commerce includes human lives, while the city's pearl gates belong to a vision illuminated by God's glory. The contrast is not material versus spiritual but corrupt accumulation versus God's renewed dwelling. Faithful teaching values the kingdom, practices discernment humbly, examines economic harm, and receives apocalyptic beauty as hope without making wealth a sign of holiness.
Matt.13.46
Margarites is a masculine Greek noun meaning pearl. Its New Testament occurrences are grammatically straightforward, but their rhetorical roles differ sharply across proverbial warning, parable, ethical instruction, economic lament, and apocalyptic description.
Biblical wisdom, sanctuary beauty, prophetic critiques of luxury, and renewed-creation hope provide wider canonical context for valuable materials. Those connections should preserve Matthew, First Timothy, and Revelation's own arguments rather than treating every jewel as the same symbol.