οὗ (ou) in John 1:30: Pronoun Genitive Singular Masculine
οὗ (ou) in John 1:30
Textual Witness
The witness reads οὗ in John 1:30 within the clause οὗτός ἐστι περὶ οὗ ἐγὼ εἶπον.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form sharpens the reader's sense that John is speaking about a specific person already in view, not about an abstract idea or a new topic.
How To Communicate It
In English, the best communicative force is usually 'about whom' or 'concerning whom,' because that preserves both reference and the prepositional relation.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- The masculine gender here indicates agreement with the referent, not a gendered theological assertion.
- Where syntax is clear enough, state only the relation the form supports and avoid overclaiming from morphology alone.
What Does The Label Mean?
Pronoun: the word stands in for an identified referent and points readers to a person or thing already in view.
Genitive: the form usually marks a dependent relationship, here after περὶ to indicate the one being spoken about.
Singular: the form refers to one referent in this occurrence, not to a group.
Masculine: the pronoun matches a masculine referent in context, but this is grammatical agreement, not a theological claim.
What The Form Does In This Verse
περὶ
The genitive is governed by the preposition περὶ and functions within the phrase περὶ οὗ, meaning concerning whom or about whom.
It identifies the person Jesus has said he was speaking about, linking John's prior statement to the referent introduced by οὗτος.
It does not by itself name a new subject, add a new claim, or override the larger sentence that is centered on the one being testified about.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The genitive relative pronoun ties John's earlier testimony to the person he is identifying.
Genitive relative pronoun governed by περὶ. marks the person concerning whom John had spoken. Attached to περὶ οὗ. Governed by the preposition περὶ in the reporting phrase. The phrase keeps the testimony focused on the same referent rather than opening a new topic.
About whom had John spoken? The pronoun points back to the identified one whom John says comes after him and is before him.
Direct: The form directly supports wording such as about whom or concerning whom.
The preposition and pronoun clarify reference, but the surrounding sentence identifies the person. The genitive form should not be made to carry the whole Christological claim by itself.
Case ending is treated as the whole theological argument: The genitive supports the relation; John's full statement carries the claim.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads οὗ in John 1:30 within the clause οὗτός ἐστι περὶ οὗ ἐγὼ εἶπον.
The lemma ὅς is a relative pronoun that can point back to an antecedent and express who, which, or that in context.
Here the genitive is tied to περὶ, so the phrase naturally means concerning whom, with the pronoun referring back to the person already identified in the verse.
The sentence says that John is speaking about the one who comes after him and who is also before him in rank or significance.
Within John's testimony, the grammar helps keep attention on the same Christological referent without forcing a broader claim than the verse itself states.
For translation and teaching, the form can be rendered smoothly as whom or of whom, preserving the sense of reference rather than spotlighting the morphology.
Do not derive a separate doctrine from genitive case alone, and do not make the masculine form carry a meaning beyond agreement with the referent.