Yes
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nai means yes, assent, affirmation, or so it is. The New Testament uses it in ordinary answers, prayerful agreement with the Father's pleasure, humble faith before Jesus, confession of Christ, apostolic concern for truthful speech, the certainty of God's promises in Christ, and final hope in the Lord's coming.
Reader summary
Full entry for ναί (G3483) · Open the biblical lexicon
nai means yes, assent, affirmation, or so it is. The New Testament uses it in ordinary answers, prayerful agreement with the Father's pleasure, humble faith before Jesus, confession of Christ, apostolic concern for truthful speech, the certainty of God's promises in Christ, and final hope in the Lord's coming.
The BSB source-word alignment has 34 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Yes (32), [be] ‘Yes (1), So shall it be (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:37. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (9), 2 Corinthians (6), Luke (4), Revelation (4).
Nai means yes, assent, affirmation, or so it is. The New Testament uses it in ordinary answers, prayerful agreement with the Father's pleasure, humble faith before Jesus, confession of Christ, apostolic concern for truthful speech, the certainty of God's promises in Christ, and final hope in the Lord's coming. The word is small, but it often exposes whether speech is plain, faithful, and aligned with reality.
Pastorally, nai warns against manipulative double-speech and calls for truthful assent to what God has said. Its strongest theological use is not human positivity, but God's reliable yes in Christ, through whom His promises stand and His people answer Amen to His glory.
Nai is the ordinary word yes, but the selected witnesses show truthful speech, humble faith, Christ confession, apostolic integrity, God's promises in Christ, and final agreement with Jesus' promised coming.
Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Anything more comes from the evil one.
Jesus calls for plain truthful speech. nai is set against oath-making that hides unreliable words.
“Yes, Lord,” she said, “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
The Canaanite woman says yes while clinging to mercy. Her assent does not retreat from faith.
“Yes, Lord,” she answered, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Martha's yes introduces a strong confession of Jesus as Christ and Son of God.
But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.”
Paul defends the integrity of apostolic speech by grounding it in God's faithfulness.
For all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ. And so through Him, our “Amen” is spoken to the glory of God.
God's promises find their yes in Christ. The word serves covenant certainty and worship.
He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The risen Jesus affirms His coming. The final yes summons the church's Amen and longing prayer.
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. yes
particle of affirmation, yea, verily, even so; in answer to a question: Mat.9:28 13:51 17:25 21:16, Jhn.11:27 21:15-16, Act.5:8 22:27, Rom.3:29; before λέγω ὑμῖν, Mat.11:9, Luk.7:26; repeated for emphasis, ναὶ ναί (opposite to oὒ oὔ): Mat.5:37; ἤτω ὑμῶν τὸ ναὶ ναί, Jas.5:12; ν. καὶ οὔ, 2Co.1:18-19; ἵνα ᾖ . . . τὸ ναὶ ναί, 2Co.1:17; τὸ ν., 2Co.1:20; in assent to an assertion: Mat.15:27, Mrk.7:28, Rev.14:13 16:7; in confirmation of a previous assertion: Mat.11:26, Luk.10:21 11:51 12:5, Php.4:3, Phm 20; in solemn asseveration Rev.1:7 22:20.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 34 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
yes, certainly, even so
Read verseyes, certainly, even so
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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 1 case and number pattern. 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.
Nai is one of the simplest words in the lexicon, yet Scripture gives it real moral and theological weight. Jesus tells His disciples to let their yes be yes, because truthful people should not need verbal smoke to cover unreliable speech. The Canaanite woman and Martha show yes as humble faith and confession before Jesus. Paul refuses a message that is yes and no because God is faithful, and then he grounds the church's confidence in the Son: all God's promises are yes in Christ.
Revelation closes with Jesus' own yes to His coming. The preacher should therefore resist turning nai into mere positivity. Christian yes is truthful, submissive, promise-shaped, and directed to Christ.
2Cor.1.20
Nai is a particle of affirmation. Its theological weight comes from what is being affirmed, who speaks, and whether the yes aligns with God's truth.
The God who speaks truthfully and keeps covenant promises trains His people to truthful speech. In Christ, the promises receive their decisive yes, and the church answers Amen.