Jar
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Hydria names a water jar, a household or ritual vessel for holding water, and John uses it in two scenes that move from ordinary containers to revelatory encounter. At Cana, six stone water jars are present for the Jewish rites of purification, and Jesus commands them to be filled before the first sign reveals His glory.
Reader summary
Full entry for ὑδρία (G5201) · Open the biblical lexicon
Hydria names a water jar, a household or ritual vessel for holding water, and John uses it in two scenes that move from ordinary containers to revelatory encounter. At Cana, six stone water jars are present for the Jewish rites of purification, and Jesus commands them to be filled before the first sign reveals His glory.
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include jars (1), water jar (1), water jars (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 2:6. Its strongest book concentrations include John (3).
Hydria names a water jar, a household or ritual vessel for holding water, and John uses it in two scenes that move from ordinary containers to revelatory encounter. At Cana, six stone water jars are present for the Jewish rites of purification, and Jesus commands them to be filled before the first sign reveals His glory. In John 4, the Samaritan woman leaves her water jar after speaking with Jesus and goes into town to bear witness.
The word does not mean transformation by itself, nor does it turn the jar into a sacrament. Hydria helps readers see how ordinary vessels, daily tasks, and purification settings can become part of scenes where Jesus reveals who He is and draws people into witness.
Hydria names a water jar in John. Cana's stone jars belong to purification and Jesus' first sign, while the Samaritan woman's jar is left behind as witness begins.
Now six stone water jars had been set there for the Jewish rites of purification. Each could hold from twenty to thirty gallons.
John identifies six stone water jars set there for Jewish purification rites.
Jesus told the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim.
Jesus commands the servants to fill the jars with water before the sign at Cana.
Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people,
The Samaritan woman leaves her water jar and goes into town after speaking with Jesus.
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. jar
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
3 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a water pot
Read versea water pot
Read versea water pot
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.
ὑδρία 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.
Hydria helps teachers trace how John uses ordinary material detail to serve revelation. The stone jars at Cana are not random props; they belong to purification practice, are filled at Jesus' command, and stand within the first sign by which He reveals His glory. In John 4, the woman's water jar represents an ordinary daily task, but after her encounter with Jesus she leaves it and goes to the town with testimony.
In both scenes, the jar is not the center. Jesus is. Yet the vessel helps readers see the movement from water, purification, thirst, and daily labor toward glory, living water, and witness. The word teaches attentiveness to concrete details without turning them into independent sources of doctrine.
John.2.6
Hydria is a concrete noun for a water jar. Context decides whether the jar is part of purification practice, household work, or a narrative sign setting.
Water vessels, cleansing, and hospitality appear across Scripture, but John uses hydria in scenes centered on Jesus' revealed glory and living-water witness. Teachers should connect the themes without treating the jar as a symbol that explains itself.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain