A linen bandage
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Othonion names linen cloths or wrappings, especially in the burial and resurrection narratives. The word appears where Jesus' body is wrapped for burial and where the empty tomb is inspected after His resurrection.
Reader summary
Full entry for ὀθόνιον (G3608) · Open the biblical lexicon
Othonion names linen cloths or wrappings, especially in the burial and resurrection narratives. The word appears where Jesus' body is wrapped for burial and where the empty tomb is inspected after His resurrection.
The BSB source-word alignment has 5 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include linen cloths (4), in linen cloths (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 24:12. Its strongest book concentrations include John (4), Luke (1).
Othonion names linen cloths or wrappings, especially in the burial and resurrection narratives. The word appears where Jesus' body is wrapped for burial and where the empty tomb is inspected after His resurrection. Luke shows Peter seeing only the linen cloths and wondering what happened. John first shows the cloths used in burial with spices, then shows them lying in the tomb, separate from the face cloth.
The word does not prove the resurrection by itself, but it serves the witness of the passage. The cloths belong to the bodily reality of death, burial, and the emptied tomb. They help teachers speak carefully about evidence without claiming more than the Gospel writers state.
Othonion names linen burial cloths in Luke and John. The word follows Jesus' body from burial preparation to the empty tomb, where the cloths become part of the Gospel witness.
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. And after bending down and seeing only the linen cloths, he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Luke shows Peter seeing only the linen cloths and leaving in wonder.
So they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom.
John places the linen cloths in the burial of Jesus with spices.
He bent down and looked in at the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.
The beloved disciple sees the linen cloths lying in the tomb before entering.
Simon Peter arrived just after him. He entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there.
Peter enters and sees the linen cloths lying there.
The cloth that had been around Jesus’ head was rolled up, lying separate from the linen cloths.
John distinguishes the face cloth from the linen cloths in the empty tomb.
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 linen cloth used specifically for wrapping a corpse in burial, as in Jesus' entombment.
A linen cloth used specifically for wrapping a corpse in burial, as in Jesus' entombment.
(dimin. of ὀθόνη, which see), [in LXX: Jdg.14:13 (סָדִין), Hos.2:5, 9 (פִּשְׁתֶּה)* ;] a piece of fine linen, a linen cloth; Luk.24:12 (WH, R, mg., om.), Jhn.19:40 20:5-7.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a linen bandage
Read versea linen bandage
Read versea linen bandage
Read versea linen bandage
Read versea linen bandage
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 3 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.
ὀθόνιον is built from this root:
Othonion is pastorally useful because Scripture does not hurry past the material details of death and resurrection. Jesus' body is wrapped in linen cloths according to burial custom, and those cloths are later seen in the empty tomb. The word helps teachers resist two mistakes. One mistake is to make the cloths a sensational relic that does more than the text says.
The other is to treat them as incidental when the Gospel writers intentionally include them in the witness sequence. Luke and John use ordinary burial material to show that the resurrection announcement is tied to a real body, a real tomb, and real observers. The cloths remain silent objects, but in the narrative they point to a tomb where Jesus no longer lies.
John.20.6
The term names linen cloths or strips rather than a doctrinal concept. In these passages its importance comes from burial and empty-tomb context, not from a broad symbolic range.
Scripture treats death and burial as concrete realities, not abstractions. The linen cloths in the Gospels stand within that concrete witness and prepare for resurrection proclamation. Connections to hope must move through Jesus' death and resurrection, not through a relic-like use of the cloths.
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