Today
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Σήμερον (sēmeron) means today or this present day, locating speech and action in the hearer's immediate time. Jesus teaches disciples to ask for today's bread, forming daily dependence rather than anxious accumulation.
Reader summary
Full entry for σήμερον (G4594) · Open the biblical lexicon
Σήμερον (sēmeron) means today or this present day, locating speech and action in the hearer's immediate time. Jesus teaches disciples to ask for today's bread, forming daily dependence rather than anxious accumulation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 41 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include today (30), this day (4), very (2), [this] (1), day (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:11. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (11), Acts (9), Hebrews (8), Matthew (8).
Σήμερον (sēmeron) means today or this present day, locating speech and action in the hearer's immediate time. Jesus teaches disciples to ask for today's bread, forming daily dependence rather than anxious accumulation. In Nazareth He announces that Isaiah's Scripture is fulfilled today in the congregation's hearing, making messianic promise a present summons.
Peter says the apostles are examined today for a good deed to a disabled man, naming the current legal hearing. Paul says a veil remains to this day when the old covenant is read apart from Christ, describing continuing spiritual resistance. James quotes merchants planning “today or tomorrow” without acknowledging the Lord's will. The adverb can mark provision, fulfillment, hearing, persistence, or presumptuous planning; its theological force comes from the event placed in the present.
Σήμερον names the present day. It frames daily provision, Scripture fulfilled in Jesus, a current hearing about healing, a veil continuing to the present, and commercial plans made without submission to God's will.
Give us this day our daily bread.
The prayer for bread today trains disciples to receive daily provision from the Father rather than treating tomorrow's security as self-produced.
And He began by saying, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus says Isaiah's promise is fulfilled today in the hearers' ears, locating the Spirit-anointed mission in His own presence and demanding a response from Nazareth.
If we are being examined today about a kind service to a man who was lame, to determine how he was healed,
Peter identifies the present examination as being about a kind act to a disabled man and then names Jesus Christ as the one through whom he was healed.
But their minds were closed. For to this day the same veil remains at the reading of the old covenant. It has not been lifted, because only in Christ can it be removed.
Paul says the same veil remains to this day in old-covenant reading and is removed only in Christ, describing a continuing condition rather than a defect in Scripture.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.”
James exposes people who confidently schedule travel, business, and profit today or tomorrow while ignoring life's brevity and the Lord's sovereign will.
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. Present moment with urgency; marks the immediate now when decision or faith response is demanded.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 41 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
today, now
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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 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 2 selected witnesses from 41 lexical occurrence verses.
σήμερον is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Today is received, not possessed. The Lord's Prayer asks the Father for bread suited to the present day, forming trust that neither denies work nor worships stored security. In Nazareth, “today” makes fulfillment confrontational: Scripture is not merely ancient expectation but a word realized in Jesus before the hearers. Acts places gospel witness inside a current public hearing, where an act of mercy becomes occasion to name the risen Christ.
Second Corinthians describes a tragic continuity to the present, yet also announces that turning to the Lord removes the veil. James tests ordinary planning by mortality and providence; believers may plan, but only as servants who say, “If the Lord wills. ” Teachers can use σήμερον to cultivate present obedience, daily dependence, and humble planning without collapsing God's long promises into momentary emotion.
Matt.6.11
Σήμερον is a temporal adverb for today or the present day. In direct speech it refers to the speaker's day; in quotation and proclamation it can create a present horizon that readers must locate within the discourse.
Israel receives daily manna, psalms summon hearers to respond today, prophets announce appointed days, and Jesus brings promised salvation into the hearers' present.
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