To grieve (the feeling or the act)
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G3996 is a verb for mourning, grieving, or lamenting, the outward and inward response to loss, judgment, sin, or the absence of someone beloved. Jesus calls mourners blessed because comfort belongs to the kingdom’s future and present mercy, while He also explains that His disciples will mourn when the bridegroom is taken away.
Reader summary
Full entry for πενθέω (G3996) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3996 is a verb for mourning, grieving, or lamenting, the outward and inward response to loss, judgment, sin, or the absence of someone beloved. Jesus calls mourners blessed because comfort belongs to the kingdom’s future and present mercy, while He also explains that His disciples will mourn when the bridegroom is taken away.
The BSB source-word alignment has 10 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include mourn (6), have been stricken with grief (1), I will be grieved over (1), who were mourning (1), you will mourn (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (3), Matthew (2), 1 Corinthians (1), 2 Corinthians (1).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
G3996 is a verb for mourning, grieving, or lamenting, the outward and inward response to loss, judgment, sin, or the absence of someone beloved. Jesus calls mourners blessed because comfort belongs to the kingdom’s future and present mercy, while He also explains that His disciples will mourn when the bridegroom is taken away. The verb can name personal grief, communal weeping, penitential sorrow, or the lament of people who benefited from a doomed system.
James uses it in a call to turn worldly laughter into mourning, not as a command to despise joy but as a summons to take sin seriously. Paul grieves over people who have sinned and not repented, joining pastoral sorrow to moral concern. G3996 therefore does not reduce grief to a single emotional stage or promise that every loss will be quickly resolved. Nor does it authorize leaders to demand public sorrow as proof of repentance.
The word opens a theology of honest lament in which grief can be comforted, redirected, shared, and held before God. Read each occurrence with attention to what has been lost, whether the grief is faithful or distorted, and what comfort, repentance, justice, or hope the passage provides.
G3996 moves through blessed mourning, the grief of absence, witness-bearing sorrow, hunger and reversal, repentance, personal pastoral anguish, and the lament of judgment. Its range shows that grief must be interpreted by its object and moral setting rather than silenced or celebrated indiscriminately.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Jesus names mourners within kingdom blessing, promising comfort without denying the present reality or dignity of their grief.
Jesus replied, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while He is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.
Jesus locates mourning within the changing presence of the bridegroom, showing that grief and fasting can be fitting responses to loss and longing.
She went and told those who had been with Him, who were mourning and weeping.
The mourning disciples are described in the aftermath of Jesus’ death, making grief part of the resurrection narrative rather than evidence that they had no place in faith.
Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
Jesus’ woe reverses complacent security and warns that present comfort built on injustice cannot be treated as final blessing.
Grieve, mourn, and weep. Turn your laughter to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
James summons a proud community to serious repentance, using mourning as a fitting response to sin rather than a universal rejection of joy.
I am afraid that when I come again, my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of their acts of impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery.
Paul’s grief is pastoral and morally focused: he mourns persistent sin and the absence of repentance, not merely the discomfort of being criticized.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Deep sorrow expressed through outward lamentation; grief that manifests in visible mourning behavior.
Deep sorrow expressed through outward lamentation; grief that manifests in visible mourning behavior.
to mourn (for), lament;
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
10 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
Read verseI mourn, lament
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
How this verb appears across 9 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 10 lexical occurrence verses.
πενθέω is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G3996 lets the New Testament speak about grief without flattening it. Jesus blesses those who mourn, not because loss is pleasant or because sorrow earns favor, but because the kingdom promises comfort to people who do not need to pretend that the world is whole. He also tells His disciples that there will be a time to mourn when the bridegroom is taken away, giving grief a place within the story of faithful attachment.
The mourning disciples in Mark show that the first witnesses to the resurrection were not emotionally untouched by death. James uses the verb differently, calling a proud community to mourn because its sin deserves serious repentance. Paul’s grief over unrepentant impurity is likewise pastoral sorrow, not self-pity. Luke’s woe warns that laughter built on complacent privilege can become mourning when God’s reversal is revealed.
These passages require careful discernment. Grief can honor love, expose injustice, express repentance, or lament judgment, but public sorrow is not automatically holiness. Teachers should not rush mourners toward cheerful explanation or demand visible emotion as proof of faith. G3996 calls the church to comfort honestly, repent seriously, protect the grieving, and trust the God who promises a final end to death and tears.
Matt.5.4
G3996 is an action verb whose objects and contexts include personal loss, the bridegroom’s absence, communal sin, social reversal, and judgment. Its translation as mourn, grieve, or lament reflects the passage’s source of sorrow and expected response.
The New Testament’s mourning language continues the Old Testament practice of lament while centering comfort, repentance, resurrection, and final restoration in Christ. Christian hope does not erase grief; it gives grief a truthful place within God’s promise to redeem and judge.