A stroke; by implication, a wound; figuratively, a calamity
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Πληγή (plēgē) means blow, wound, stripe, or plague, naming either an individual strike and its injury or a wider affliction. In Jesus' Samaritan parable, robbers inflict blows that leave a traveler half dead, establishing the neighbor's need for costly mercy.
Reader summary
Full entry for πληγή (G4127) · Open the biblical lexicon
Πληγή (plēgē) means blow, wound, stripe, or plague, naming either an individual strike and its injury or a wider affliction. In Jesus' Samaritan parable, robbers inflict blows that leave a traveler half dead, establishing the neighbor's need for costly mercy.
The BSB source-word alignment has 22 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include plagues (10), beatings (2), plague (2), wound (2), . . . (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 10:30. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (16), 2 Corinthians (2), Acts (2), Luke (2).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
Πληγή (plēgē) means blow, wound, stripe, or plague, naming either an individual strike and its injury or a wider affliction. In Jesus' Samaritan parable, robbers inflict blows that leave a traveler half dead, establishing the neighbor's need for costly mercy. Paul and Silas receive many blows before unlawful imprisonment, and Paul later lists beatings among the hardships of apostolic ministry.
Revelation calls fire, smoke, and sulfur plagues that kill a third of humanity within trumpet judgment. Jesus' stewardship parable speaks of few blows for lesser culpability, while greater knowledge brings greater accountability. The noun does not make every injury divine punishment or every plague a medical epidemic. Agent, judicial setting, scale, and literary genre determine whether it means violence, persecution, disciplinary recompense, or apocalyptic judgment.
Πληγή names a blow, wound, or plague. Its passages portray robbery's violence, unlawful beatings, ministry suffering, apocalyptic affliction, and measured accountability according to knowledge.
Jesus took up this question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.
Robbers strip and beat the traveler, leaving him near death, and the wounds create the concrete need the Samaritan recognizes and tends.
And after striking them with many blows, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.
Paul and Silas receive many blows without trial before imprisonment, making their wounds evidence of public injustice later confronted by their citizenship claim.
In beatings, imprisonments, and riots; in labor, sleepless nights, and hunger;
Paul includes beatings among hardships endured while commending gospel ministry, not as self-inflicted merit but as costly faithfulness.
A third of mankind was killed by the three plagues of fire, smoke, and sulfur that proceeded from their mouths.
Fire, smoke, and sulfur become three plagues killing a third of humanity in Revelation's trumpet vision, a severe but bounded judgment.
But the one who unknowingly does things worthy of punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and from him who has been entrusted with much, even more will be demanded.
The servant acting ignorantly receives few blows, while the parable's conclusion makes entrusted knowledge increase accountability rather than eliminate judgment.
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. a stroke; by implication, a wound; figuratively, a calamity
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 21 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
Read versea blow, stripe, wound
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 8 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.
πληγή 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.
Blows reveal both the vulnerability of sufferers and the responsibility of those with power. The Samaritan does not debate why the wounded man lies there; he treats the injuries robbers inflicted and bears the cost of care. Philippi shows authorities inflicting many blows without lawful process, and Paul's later insistence on public accountability prevents suffering from being mistaken for approval of abuse.
His ministry catalog names beatings honestly as part of endurance, not as a badge leaders may demand from others. Jesus' servant parable makes judgment proportionate to knowledge, while Revelation presents plagues as bounded acts within God's final confrontation with evil. Churches should bind wounds, challenge unlawful violence, support persecuted witnesses, and speak of judgment with textual restraint.
Πληγή never grants interpreters permission to call every affliction a direct punishment from God.
Luke.10.30
Πληγή is a noun related to striking and can denote a blow, resulting wound, stripe, or plague. Number and context distinguish repeated beatings from large-scale affliction.
The law limits judicial blows, prophets use wounds as images of national sickness, the servant is wounded for transgressors, and Revelation portrays plagues under divine limits.