What does πέντε (pénte) mean in the Bible?
Pente is the Greek number five. It usually counts plainly: five loaves, five virgins, five in a household, five words, five thousand, or five fallen kings.
Greek · G4002
πέντε
"Five"
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πέντε G4002
Pronunciation pénte
What does πέντε (pénte) mean in the Bible?
Pente is the Greek number five. It usually counts plainly: five loaves, five virgins, five in a household, five words, five thousand, or five fallen kings.
Reader summary
Full entry for πέντε (G4002) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G4002?
The BSB source-word alignment has 38 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include five (30), . . . (2), for five (2), [for] five (1), {with} five (1).
Where does πέντε (pénte) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 14:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (12), Luke (9), Acts (5), John (5).
What This Word Actually Means
Pente is the Greek number five. It usually counts plainly: five loaves, five virgins, five in a household, five words, five thousand, or five fallen kings. The number becomes useful for teaching when the passage makes the counted amount part of its argument. In John 6, five barley loaves expose the smallness of the visible supply before Jesus feeds the crowd.
In 1 Corinthians 14:19, five intelligible words are better than ten thousand words that do not instruct the church. In Matthew 25, five wise and five foolish virgins divide readiness from presumption. Pente does not invite teachers to hunt for a secret code. It invites them to notice how a measured amount serves the immediate passage: scarcity, contrast, division, stewardship, or clarity.
How the Bible Uses It
Pente is a counting word whose pastoral value depends on what the passage counts. Its New Testament uses can frame scarcity, readiness, divided households, stewardship, intelligible teaching, or remembered provision without requiring symbolic speculation.
- John.6.9
“Here is a boy with five barley loaves and two small fish. But what difference will these make among so many?”
The five barley loaves mark the visible inadequacy of the supply before Jesus feeds the multitude.
- John.6.13
So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
The five loaves are remembered after the abundance, so the count helps the reader hold scarcity and leftover provision together.
- Matt.25.2
Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.
Five foolish and five wise virgins divide the parable around readiness, not around a hidden meaning of the number.
- Luke.12.52
From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three.
Five in one household become divided, using the number to make the cost of discipleship concrete at family scale.
- 1Cor.14.19
But in the church, I would rather speak five coherent words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue.
Paul's five coherent words show that intelligible instruction is better for the church than impressive speech without understanding.
- Mark.8.19
When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of broken pieces did you collect?” “Twelve,” they answered.
Jesus recalls the five loaves and the five thousand to rebuke forgetfulness and draw the disciples back to His provision.
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders It five 30× Matthew 14:17, Matthew 14:19, Matthew 16:9, Matthew 25:2
. . . 2× John 6:19, Acts 7:14
for five 2× Luke 1:24, Revelation 9:10
[for] five 1× Revelation 9:5
{with} five 1× Matthew 25:20
fifty thousand 1× Acts 19:19
five [were] 1× Matthew 25:2
Show sample aligned rows
Matthew 14:17 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural Matthew 14:19 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural Matthew 16:9 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural Matthew 25:2 πέντε to Five Adjective - Nominative Feminine Plural Matthew 25:2 πέντε to five [were] Adjective - Nominative Feminine Plural Matthew 25:15 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural Matthew 25:16 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural Matthew 25:16 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural Matthew 25:20 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural Matthew 25:20 πέντε to five Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Matthew 14:17
Aligned rows 38
Books represented 7
Matthew 12 Mark 3 Luke 9 John 5 Acts 5 1 Corinthians 1 Revelation 3
Source forms
πέντε 37x pente Matthew 14:17, Matthew 14:19, Matthew 16:9, Matthew 25:2
Πέντε 1x Pente Mark 6:38
Parsing patterns
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural 15x Matthew 14:17, Matthew 14:19, Matthew 16:9, Mark 6:38
Adjective - Accusative Neuter Plural 8x Matthew 25:15, Matthew 25:16, Matthew 25:20, Luke 14:19
Adjective - Accusative Feminine Plural 4x Luke 19:18, John 5:2, Acts 19:19, Acts 24:1
Adjective - Nominative Feminine Plural 3x Matthew 25:2, Acts 4:4
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Plural 3x Luke 9:13, Luke 12:52, Revelation 17:10
Adjective - Genitive Feminine Plural 2x Luke 19:19, Acts 20:6
Adjective - Dative Feminine Plural 1x Acts 7:14
Adjective - Genitive Masculine Plural 1x John 6:13
Using This Word Well
Be careful not to...
- Let the counted object guide the point: loaves expose limitation, words expose intelligibility, virgins expose readiness, and households expose divided allegiance.
- Use five where the text uses it, but do not make the number carry more theology than the passage gives it.
Avoid claiming...
- Do not claim that five has a fixed spiritual meaning across the New Testament.
- Do not claim that John 6 is about the virtue of small resources. The sign displays Jesus' provision, not the hidden power of the number.
Evidence Summary
Greek word. "five"
Strong's G4002
Lexical occurrences 38 verses Greek text appearances 37 times 16 shown below Word forms 9 forms 38 references Verse guides 0 guides
Source Gloss
"five"
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 37 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Matthew 14:17 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 14:19 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 16:9 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:2 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:2 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:15 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:16 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:16 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:20 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:20 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:20 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Matthew 25:20 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Mark 6:38 Numeral
Πέντε, pente
five
Read verse Mark 6:41 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Mark 8:19 Numeral
πέντε pente
five
Read verse Luke 1:24 Numeral
πέντε, pente
five
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.
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 9 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.
Form patterns 9 Aligned forms 38 Case pattern Accusative (27) Number pattern Plural (38)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Plural · Feminine Matt 25:2 · Acts 4:4 3×
Nominative · Plural · Masculine Luke 9:13 · Luke 12:52 · Rev 17:10 3×
Nominative · Plural · Neuter Luke 12:6 1×
Genitive · Plural · Feminine Luke 19:19 · Acts 20:6 2×
Genitive · Plural · Masculine John 6:13 1×
Dative · Plural · Feminine Acts 7:14 1×
Accusative · Plural · Masculine Matt 14:17 · Matt 14:19 · Matt 16:9 · Mark 6:38 · Mark 6:41 · Mark 8:19 · Luke 1:24 · Luke 9:16 · Luke 16:28 · John 4:18 · John 6:9 · John 6:19 · 1 Cor 14:19 · Rev 9:5 · Rev 9:10 15×
Accusative · Plural · Neuter Matt 25:15 · Matt 25:16 · Matt 25:20 · Luke 14:19 8×
Accusative · Plural · Feminine Luke 19:18 · John 5:2 · Acts 19:19 · Acts 24:1 4×
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
For the Preacher and Teacher
The central pastoral insight in pente is restraint joined to attention. John 6 does not need a symbolic theory of five for the five loaves to matter. The count matters because it lets the reader feel the size of the need beside the smallness of the supply. First Corinthians 14 does not make five a sacred number; it uses five coherent words to expose the greater value of understandable instruction.
Matthew 25 does not hide a code in the five wise and five foolish virgins; the divided count serves the parable's call to readiness. Pente teaches readers to notice numbers where the text uses them and to stop where the text stops. The number serves the passage; the passage does not serve number speculation.
Anchor passage
John.6.9
Doctrinal connections
- G740 Artos - John 6 uses five loaves to prepare for Jesus' bread-of-life sign and discourse.
- G1427 Dodeka - the five loaves lead to twelve baskets, setting scarcity and abundance beside each other.
- G5429 Phronimos - Matthew 25's five wise virgins connect counting to readiness and discernment.
- G3056 Logos - 1 Corinthians 14:19 makes five intelligible words a pastoral correction to speech that does not build up.
- G3307 Merizo - Luke 12:52 uses the count to make family division under Jesus' mission concrete.
- John 6 and Mark 8 - the remembered five loaves become a lesson against forgetfulness before Jesus' provision.
Pente is a cardinal numeral. Its meaning is simple, but its function changes with the counted noun. In these passages it counts loaves, people, words, talents, or kings, and the counted object supplies the interpretive value.
From Old to New Testament
Scripture often uses small counted amounts to expose dependence on God: limited bread, few words, a divided household, or entrusted talents. The New Testament does not make five a code, but it does use counted details to focus attention on provision, readiness, stewardship, and edification.
Sources
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain