Bird
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G4071 is an adjective meaning winged or flying that functions substantivally in the New Testament for birds or winged creatures. Birds appear in Jesus' teaching as recipients of the Father's provision, agents within seed parables, creatures with nests, and inhabitants of branches.
Reader summary
Full entry for πετεινόν (G4071) · Open the biblical lexicon
G4071 is an adjective meaning winged or flying that functions substantivally in the New Testament for birds or winged creatures. Birds appear in Jesus' teaching as recipients of the Father's provision, agents within seed parables, creatures with nests, and inhabitants of branches.
The BSB source-word alignment has 14 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include birds (14).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (4), Matthew (4), Acts (2), Mark (2).
G4071 is an adjective meaning winged or flying that functions substantivally in the New Testament for birds or winged creatures. Birds appear in Jesus' teaching as recipients of the Father's provision, agents within seed parables, creatures with nests, and inhabitants of branches. The word also occurs in lists of animals, in a warning about idolatrous images, and in James's account of creatures people tame.
These uses do not make birds carry one fixed symbolism. A bird may illustrate provision, loss, shelter, creaturely variety, or misplaced worship according to context. G4071 helps teachers join trust in God with creaturely attention, housing insecurity, kingdom hospitality, and humility. It must not be used to deny material need, shame anxiety, rank people by productivity, romanticize homelessness, or treat nonhuman creation as valuable only when it serves a sermon illustration.
G4071 names birds or winged creatures across teaching, parable, animal lists, idolatry critique, and creation imagery. Context, not the creature alone, supplies the theological force.
Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Jesus directs disciples to birds as living witnesses to the Father's provision while explicitly affirming the greater value of the people he addresses.
And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it.
Birds consume seed that falls on the path, and Jesus later interprets the loss within the parable's account of hearing the kingdom message.
Although it is the smallest of all seeds, yet it grows into the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
Birds nesting in the mature mustard plant contribute an image of surprising growth and shelter within Jesus' kingdom comparison.
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”
Birds have nests, but the Son of Man lacks a place to lay his head, exposing the cost and insecurity present in discipleship.
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 winged creature; in NT imagery, symbolizes providential care or spiritual forces under human dominion.
A winged creature; in NT imagery, symbolizes providential care or spiritual forces under human dominion.
(πέτομαι), [in LXX chiefly for עוֹף ;] in trag., Ion. and late writers, winged, flying; as subst., τὸ π., a winged fowl, a bird: pl., Mat.6:26 8:20 13:4, 32, Mrk.4:4, 32, Luk.8:5 9:58 12:24 13:19, Act.10:12 11:6, Rom.1:23, Jas.3:7.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
14 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a bird
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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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 14 lexical occurrence verses.
πετεινόν 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.
G4071 invites close attention to ordinary creatures. Birds do not preach one message everywhere: they are fed, they eat exposed seed, they nest in branches, they appear in visions, and they can become objects in idolatrous representations. In Matthew 6, Jesus uses them to redirect anxious attention toward the Father, but his point does not eliminate farming, work, storage, generosity, or the reality of scarcity.
In Luke 9, the nests of birds sharpen the Son of Man's lack of settled shelter; faithful application should deepen hospitality and solidarity rather than romanticize housing insecurity. The mustard image can picture surprising room and refuge, yet a church should not call itself shelter while remaining inaccessible or unsafe to vulnerable people. Creation is worthy of care because it belongs to God, not merely because it supplies analogies.
G4071 therefore supports trust, ecological attention, practical provision, and humble reading while resisting superstition, productivity-based worth, and promises that believers will never experience hunger, displacement, or grief.
Matt.6.26
G4071 is the neuter substantive use of a Greek adjective related to flying. English normally renders the plural as birds or birds of the air. Its grammatical form does not assign a species or a stable symbolic value.
Old Testament birds appear within creation, sacrifice, provision, desolation, wisdom, and prophetic imagery. Jesus and the apostles reuse that creaturely world for providence, parable, discipleship, idolatry critique, and moral instruction without collapsing the distinct contexts.