To understand
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G3539 describes understanding, perceiving, attending thoughtfully, or imagining, as each clause requires. Jesus asks about failed understanding in disputes concerning defilement and the leaven warning in Matthew and Mark.
Reader summary
Full entry for νοιέω (G3539) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3539 describes understanding, perceiving, attending thoughtfully, or imagining, as each clause requires. Jesus asks about failed understanding in disputes concerning defilement and the leaven warning in Matthew and Mark.
The BSB source-word alignment has 14 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include do you not understand (2), understand (2), understand) (2), [but] they do not understand (1), being understood (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 15:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (4), Mark (3), Ephesians (2), 1 Timothy (1).
G3539 describes understanding, perceiving, attending thoughtfully, or imagining, as each clause requires. Jesus asks about failed understanding in disputes concerning defilement and the leaven warning in Matthew and Mark. The apocalyptic discourse twice inserts an appeal for the reader to understand, placing responsibility on careful reception without claiming that every detail is simple.
John 12:40 uses the verb inside a Scripture citation about hardened perception; the verse must remain within John's argument and must not become a stereotype about Jewish people or a claim that God delights in unbelief. Romans 1:20 speaks of God's invisible qualities being understood from what has been made, while Ephesians uses the verb for grasping Paul's account of Christ's mystery and for what believers imagine when praising God's surpassing power.
First Timothy exposes would-be law teachers who do not understand their confident assertions. Second Timothy joins Timothy's active consideration with the Lord's gift of understanding. Hebrews 11:3 says that by faith believers understand the universe was formed at God's command. The verb values attentive comprehension without making education, cognitive speed, disability, or interpretive certainty a measure of spiritual worth.
Fourteen governed uses range across misunderstood teaching, readerly attention, hardened perception, created-world inference, apostolic mystery, imagination, teacher accountability, divinely aided consideration, and faith's understanding.
They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not understand what they are saying.
Confidence and a desired teaching role do not substitute for comprehension.
Consider what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all things.
The imperative to think and the promise of divine help appear together.
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command.
The statement concerns faith's recognition of creation by God's word, not a complete scientific model supplied by the verb.
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. Mental perception combining intellectual understanding with deliberate reflection or consideration of meaning.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
14 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
Read verseI understand, consider
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.
Representative Scripture witnesses for this entry: passage, original form, and sense in context.
νοιέω is built from this root:
Timothy must reflect deeply on Paul’s instruction with the expectation that the Lord grants understanding.2 Timothy 2:1-7
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G3539 treats understanding as morally serious without making intelligence an idol. Jesus can rebuke disciples who persistently miss His point, yet the Gospel narratives also show that misunderstanding can be corrected through patient teaching. Paul holds human attention and divine grace together: Timothy must consider the apostolic images, and the Lord will give insight.
Teachers therefore bear a special duty not to speak confidently beyond what they understand, but congregations must not weaponize that warning against honest questions or learners who process slowly. Cognitive disability, limited schooling, language difference, trauma, and uncertainty are not evidence of rebellion. Mature teaching invites rereading, welcomes correction, names interpretive limits, and protects people from leaders who claim secret certainty.
Faith seeks understanding, while understanding remains accountable to the passage and dependent on God.
2Tim.2.7
Morphology varies widely: the witness includes finite statements and commands, infinitival forms, one participle, and a subjunctive across present and aorist systems. English renderings include understand, realize, see, consider, imagine, and being understood. Grammar and object show whether the verb concerns active attention, perceived meaning, inferred reality, or mental conception.
Wisdom literature repeatedly joins understanding with teachability, reverence, and disciplined attention, while prophetic hardening texts warn about resistant perception. New Testament writers reuse those themes around Jesus, apostolic reading, creation, and faith without reducing understanding to raw mental capacity.