To assert
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G5346 names the act of saying or affirming, often with the feel of a plain reply or assertion. In John it appears in very different mouths: John the Baptist identifies himself from Scripture, the healed man confesses faith in Jesus, and Pilate opens a legal interrogation.
Reader summary
Full entry for φημί (G5346) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5346 names the act of saying or affirming, often with the feel of a plain reply or assertion. In John it appears in very different mouths: John the Baptist identifies himself from Scripture, the healed man confesses faith in Jesus, and Pilate opens a legal interrogation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 66 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include said (13), replied (10), he said (6), [and] said (4), he replied (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 4:7. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (25), Matthew (16), Luke (8), Mark (6).
This entry includes 2 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
G5346 names the act of saying or affirming, often with the feel of a plain reply or assertion. In John it appears in very different mouths: John the Baptist identifies himself from Scripture, the healed man confesses faith in Jesus, and Pilate opens a legal interrogation. That range matters pastorally. The same basic act of saying can be faithful witness, worshipful confession, or public questioning. The verb does not make the speech true or false by itself. It asks the reader to attend to the person speaking, the pressure of the moment, and the direction of the words.
For John-focused use, the safest path is to let the immediate passage set the claim, then let the word clarify how the scene moves toward witness, faith, resistance, or worship.
G5346 appears in John where a speaker makes a plain assertion or asks a public question. The John uses move from witness, to confession, to trial, so the word is best handled as a speech marker whose pastoral force comes from context.
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
John the Baptist answers by placing himself under Isaiah's witness. The verb serves a clear public reply that directs attention to the Lord.
“Lord, I believe,” he said. And he worshiped Jesus.
The healed man answers with confessed faith and worship. The saying is brief, but in context it marks a movement from sight to believing allegiance.
So Pilate went out to them and asked, “What accusation are you bringing against this man?”
Pilate's opening question begins the public trial scene. The speech verb introduces judicial inquiry, not faithful confession.
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. to assert
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 58 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
Read verseI say
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
How this verb appears across 65 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
φημί is built from these roots:
This word helps teachers show that John's Gospel is not only interested in what people privately think about Jesus. People say things in public moments. John the Baptist says who he is and who he is not. The healed man says he believes and worships. Pilate asks what accusation is being brought. Speech becomes a public line of accountability. The word itself is not rare enough to bear heavy theology alone, but it opens the question every reader faces in John: when Jesus is in view, what will be said?
Faith, witness, evasion, accusation, and interrogation all become visible through spoken assertion.
John.1.23
To say, affirm, or assert is a reviewed display gloss for G5346. In this John-focused companion, the local discourse foregrounding data shows 3 John use(s), with tense patterns summarized as imperfect 2, present 1. Use these grammar signals as support for reading the passage, not as a replacement for context.
The broader Scripture connection should remain modest: plain assertion, confession, and public questioning is visible in the cited passages, while the full theological claim must come from each passage's context rather than from the word alone.
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