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Peri is a preposition that commonly marks the subject under discussion, concern for a person or matter, surrounding relation, or an action undertaken with reference to someone or something. English may render it “about,” “concerning,” “for,” “around,” or “on behalf of” according to its object and clause.
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Full entry for περί (G4012) · Open the biblical lexicon
Peri is a preposition that commonly marks the subject under discussion, concern for a person or matter, surrounding relation, or an action undertaken with reference to someone or something. English may render it “about,” “concerning,” “for,” “around,” or “on behalf of” according to its object and clause.
The BSB source-word alignment has 332 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include about (142), for (46), - (21), . . . (19), around (15).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 2:8. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (71), John (67), Luke (45), Matthew (28).
Peri is a preposition that commonly marks the subject under discussion, concern for a person or matter, surrounding relation, or an action undertaken with reference to someone or something. English may render it “about,” “concerning,” “for,” “around,” or “on behalf of” according to its object and clause. The word appears in statements about the Son, Scripture’s witness to Christ, Jesus’ intercession, gospel proclamation, and Christ’s atoning sacrifice concerning sins.
Those passages show why a preposition must remain attached to its phrase. Peri can identify what speech or action concerns, but it does not supply the whole doctrine. Faithful interpretation examines case, object, governing verb, and book context, then explains the relation with enough precision to preserve both ordinary topic language and stronger representative or sacrificial uses.
Peri marks a relation of subject, concern, surrounding circumstance, or reference. Its object and governing expression determine whether English uses about, concerning, for, or on behalf of.
Regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh,
Paul identifies the Son as the subject of the promised gospel and immediately describes His Davidic descent. The preposition introduces the gospel’s Christological content.
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He explained to them what was written in all the Scriptures about Himself.
The risen Jesus explains the Scriptures concerning Himself. The preposition marks the subject, while Jesus’ exposition and the canonical witness establish the claim.
You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very words that testify about Me,
Jesus identifies Himself as the One about whom the Scriptures testify. The surrounding confrontation exposes reading that misses the Person to whom the witness points.
I am not asking on behalf of them alone, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their message,
Peri participates in Jesus’ intercession for present and future believers. The governing verb and prayer context support an on-behalf-of relation.
But when they believed Philip as he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Philip proclaims the good news concerning God’s kingdom and Jesus Christ’s name. The preposition helps identify the message’s subject matter.
He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
The prepositional phrases belong to John’s statement about Christ as the atoning sacrifice concerning sins. The noun, pronouns, and letter context govern the atonement claim.
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. Concerning/about with causal sense; distinct from ὑπέρ by focusing on the matter itself rather than advocacy.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 331 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
about, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
Read verseabout, concerning, around
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 1 case and number pattern. 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 332 lexical occurrence verses.
περί 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.
Peri teaches relational precision. Romans 1 uses it to introduce God’s Son as the content of the promised gospel. Luke 24 and John 5 place Jesus at the center of Scripture’s testimony, yet neither claim is produced by the preposition alone; the risen Lord’s exposition and the Gospel’s argument supply the force. John 17 uses the word within Jesus’ intercession for those who will believe through the apostolic message.
Acts 8 marks the kingdom and Jesus’ name as the subject of gospel proclamation. First John 2 places peri inside a statement about Christ as the atoning sacrifice concerning sins, where the noun, persons, and letter govern the theology. Teaching peri well means neither flattening all relations into “about” nor assigning a stronger on-behalf-of force without syntactical support.
The phrase and passage remain the authority.
Luke.24.27
Peri usually governs a genitive or accusative expression. With the genitive it commonly marks subject, concern, or reference and can support “on behalf of” where the governing action warrants it; with the accusative it may mark surrounding relation or circumstance. The local Greek artifact currently groups about 332 occurrences.
The Scriptures promise and testify concerning God’s Son, and the apostolic gospel proclaims His saving reign and name. Peri helps mark those New Testament relations, while the whole canon supplies the history of promise, fulfillment, priestly concern, sacrifice, and worldwide witness.