Dark
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G4652 is an adjective describing what is dark or lacking light, and its three direct New Testament uses occur in Jesus’ teaching about the eye, the body, and the possibility of inner darkness. The adjective is therefore not merely a description of a room.
Reader summary
Full entry for σκοτεινός (G4652) · Open the biblical lexicon
G4652 is an adjective describing what is dark or lacking light, and its three direct New Testament uses occur in Jesus’ teaching about the eye, the body, and the possibility of inner darkness. The adjective is therefore not merely a description of a room.
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include [is] full of darkness (1), full of darkness (1), in darkness (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:23. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (2), Matthew (1).
G4652 is an adjective describing what is dark or lacking light, and its three direct New Testament uses occur in Jesus’ teaching about the eye, the body, and the possibility of inner darkness. The adjective is therefore not merely a description of a room. It names a condition in which perception, desire, and the direction of a person’s life can be disordered.
Jesus’ warning is searching because the eye can be described as a lamp, yet what should receive and direct light may instead be dark. The word does not authorize readers to diagnose another person’s heart from appearances. It presses each hearer toward self-examination and toward the integrity of the light they claim to possess. G4652 also does not mean that every psychological struggle or unanswered question is moral darkness.
Its force must be governed by Jesus’ context, where vision, treasure, divided loyalty, and the whole person are being considered. The companion opens a disciplined account of discernment: attend to what shapes perception, what desire is serving, and whether claimed light produces truthful life. Read the adjective with its surrounding images and avoid turning it into a label for opponents.
G4652 appears in Jesus’ teaching where darkness names a disordered condition of perception and the whole person. Its limited occurrence count gives a focused witness: inner darkness must be examined carefully, not projected carelessly onto others.
But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Jesus connects bad vision with the whole person and warns that claimed light can itself be darkness, pressing hearers toward honest examination of desire and perception.
Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body is full of darkness.
The eye image describes the relation between perception and the whole life, so darkness calls for discernment about what the person is receiving and pursuing.
So if your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, you will be radiant, as though a lamp were shining on you.”
The contrasting picture of a body filled with light highlights integrity and wholeness while keeping Jesus’ focus on the person’s interior condition.
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. Spiritual/moral darkness in contrast to light; used metaphorically for evil and blindness to truth
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
3 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
full of darkness, dark
Read versefull of darkness, dark
Read versefull of darkness, dark
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 2 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 1 selected witness from 3 lexical occurrence verses.
σκοτεινός 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.
G4652 gives Jesus’ light-and-darkness warning a precise edge. The eye is described as a lamp of the body, which means perception is not isolated from the direction of the whole life. If the eye is bad, the body is full of darkness; if what a person calls light is actually darkness, the condition is especially serious because false confidence blocks correction.
The adjective therefore concerns more than mood. It reaches into the way people evaluate treasure, loyalty, goodness, and the world around them. Yet the word also requires restraint. Jesus is not giving listeners permission to declare every difficult person dark or to treat mental illness, grief, doubt, or limited knowledge as proof of moral corruption. The warning begins as self-examination.
What do I desire? What do I refuse to see? What kind of light is shaping my judgments? Luke’s fuller presentation stresses a body filled with light and the possibility of radiant integrity. Teachers should let the passage expose divided loyalties and self-deception while preserving compassion and the limits of human knowledge. G4652 calls for a life whose claimed light is tested by truthful, humble, whole-person obedience.
Matt.6.23
G4652 is an adjective used substantivally or predicatively in the eye-and-body sayings, so its force comes from the persons or parts described as dark. The repeated contrast with light makes the word’s relational and moral setting explicit.
Jesus’ teaching continues the biblical contrast between darkness and light while locating the crisis within human perception and divided loyalty. The apostolic call to walk in the light extends this concern into truthful community life, confession, and transformed practice.