to make known: to cause someone to know something, whether by revealing what was hidden or by simply informing them.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its heart this word means to cause another person to know something. It is the active, outward-facing cousin of the ordinary word for knowing (γινώσκω): not to know a thing yourself, but to put it into someone else's grasp. So it runs from the plainest informing (a messenger telling a church how the apostle is faring) all the way up to God unveiling a secret no one could have worked out on their own.
Those two ends of the range are worth keeping apart, and the senses below do so. In everyday use it is close to "tell" or "let you know." But it is also one of the great disclosure words of the New Testament letters, especially in Ephesians and Colossians, where God is the one who makes known the long-hidden plan he had all along. The single act is the same in both, causing someone to know, and only the weight of what is disclosed changes.
A reader's main task is not to over-read every occurrence as a dramatic revelation, nor to flatten the loaded ones into a bare "tell." Context decides which end of the range is in view.
Nuances
1ato disclose something that was hidden; to reveal, said above all of God unveiling his once-secret plan and of Jesus passing on what he received from the Father.
to know, or to be able to say; used where the speaker cannot tell which of two things he would choose.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested
This second meaning rests on a single, much-debated verse. In Philippians 1:22 the apostle weighs whether it is better for him to go on living or to depart and be with Christ, and says of the choice, in most modern translations, "I do not know" or "I cannot tell." Read that way, the word here does not mean to make something known to others but simply to know, or to be able to say, for oneself.
That reading is not certain. Everywhere else in the New Testament the word means to cause someone else to know, so some take even this verse in its usual sense: the apostle is not confessing ignorance but declining to announce which he would pick. The two readings are laid out on the verse below. Because a whole meaning hangs on one contested line, this is exactly the kind of split scholars weigh carefully.
Php 1:22*
Php 1:22
Whether the word at Philippians 1:22 means "know / be unable to tell" or keeps its usual sense "make known / declare."
majorityIt means "know" or "be unable to say": the speaker cannot tell which he would choose. This is the reading behind most modern translations.; BDAG, s.v. γνωρίζω; Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (1995)
minorityIt keeps its normal sense, "make known / declare": the speaker declines to announce which he would choose, rather than confessing ignorance.; Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians, NIGTC (1991)
Uncategorized
Awaiting AI sense categorization.
1 verse
Rom 16:26(14:25)
Related words
The English words used to translate gnōrizō
“make known”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“declare”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
the Greek word only means to cause someone to know, whether or not anything was ever hidden, so it comfortably covers plain, everyday informing that "reveal" would overdramatize.Col 4:72Co 8:1
Both
both are used of God disclosing the once-hidden plan of the gospel.Eph 1:9Eph 3:5
Only reveal
English "reveal" implies uncovering something previously hidden or secret; the Greek word carries no such requirement of hiddenness.
Is causative: it means to make a fact known to someone else, not merely to know it oneself. It always has an implied or stated audience being informed.Eph 1:9Col 1:27
Is the standard verb for God disclosing something previously hidden, especially a mystery revealed by God's own initiative rather than discovered by human effort.Rom 9:22Eph 3:3
Also covers the ordinary act of reporting or informing someone of something, with no sense of hidden mystery at all.Php 4:62Co 8:1
Names the subject's own state of knowing, not an act of telling someone else. It covers recognizing, perceiving, or coming to understand something for oneself, including intimate personal experience.Mat 1:25Luk 1:34
Can describe bodily or inward perception, feeling a fact to be true rather than being informed of it by someone else.Mrk 5:29
Is used for knowing a person, recognizing who someone truly is, not simply learning a fact about them.Mat 7:23Luk 10:22
ἀποκαλύπτωto uncover or unveil what was hidden, with the stress on the removing of the cover. The word here stresses instead the result, that a person now knows.
Covers plain, everyday communication: passing along news or one's own circumstances and simply letting someone know, with no sense of a veil being lifted.Eph 6:21Col 4:9Php 4:6
Names the act of handing a message over to particular hearers, a teacher or messenger telling an audience what they need to grasp.1Co 15:1Gal 1:112Pe 1:16
Both
Both describe God bringing his once hidden saving purpose, the mystery of Christ, out into the open so his people can finally know it.Eph 3:51Co 2:10Eph 1:9
Carries the picture of lifting a cover off something hidden, so that secret or concealed things come to light. It is the word for uncovering, not merely informing.Mat 10:26Luk 2:35Mat 16:17
Used for the great disclosure still to come at the end of the age: the day when the Son of Man appears, the glory yet to be shown, the lawless one brought into the open.Luk 17:30Rom 8:182Th 2:81Pe 1:5
φανερόωto bring into the open so a thing can be seen or is plain to all. The word here brings something home to a particular mind rather than putting it on public display.
used for one person passing news or private information to another in ordinary correspondence, where nothing is being publicly exposed, just relayedCol 4:7Col 4:9
used for addressing a request to God in prayerPhp 4:6
Both
both describe Jesus making the Father's name known to his disciples in his final prayerJhn 17:6Jhn 17:26
both describe the gospel's once hidden plan being disclosed in the present ageEph 3:5Col 1:26
Used for God or Christ directly communicating his own mind, name, plan, or coming judgment to specific people, as the verb of apostolic revelation.Jhn 15:15Eph 3:3
Can name the act of simply knowing something oneself, not communicating it to anyone else, as when Paul says he does not know which of two options to choose.Php 1:22
Both
Both describe one person passing on a report about someone else's situation to a third party.Col 4:71Co 1:11
Used for a sign, ritual arrangement, or line of scripture that indicates a spiritual truth on its own, with no speaker doing the telling.Heb 9:8Heb 12:27
Used for a future test or event that will expose the true quality of something once it happens, rather than a person announcing it in advance.1Co 3:13
It is the ordinary word for telling people something outright, in plain words they can repeat. The shepherds simply reported what they had been told about the child, and Paul sends messengers whose whole job is to give the church the news about him.Luk 2:15Luk 2:17Eph 6:21Col 4:7
It is the standard word for God bringing into the open a plan that had been kept hidden, so that people now actually understand it rather than merely glimpse it.Rom 16:26Eph 1:9Eph 3:5Col 1:27
It also runs the other way, from a person outward: laying your own requests before God, or declining to state which choice you would make.Php 4:6Php 1:22
Both
Both leave the hearer knowing something they did not know before, and both are used of news carried from one person to others.Luk 2:17Act 11:28
Both are used of God letting people in on what they could never have worked out on their own, whether the plan is stated openly or handed over in a vision.Eph 3:5Rev 1:1
It points ahead. The word turns up where a saying is later seen to have flagged something that had not happened yet, such as the kind of death Jesus would die, the death by which Peter would honor God, or a famine still on the way.Jhn 12:33Jhn 21:19Act 11:28
What it conveys often comes wrapped in an image or a sign instead of being spelled out, so it still has to be read and understood. That is why it fits a veiled saying about being lifted up, and why John says the vision was delivered to him this way.Jhn 18:32Rev 1:1
At its plainest it still means marking out which particular items are at issue, as with the specific charges a governor thinks must be noted against a prisoner he is sending on.Act 25:27
gnōrizō in the other biblical languages
יָדַעHebrew“to know”the Hebrew word for knowing; in its "cause to know" form it is the main Old Testament word for making something known, which Greek Bibles regularly render with this word.
It names only the act of telling: one party disclosing something to another. It never describes simply possessing knowledge, recognizing a fact, or being acquainted with a person, the way its Hebrew counterpart routinely does.Jhn 15:15
Paul repeatedly uses it for unveiling a specific, once hidden divine secret, the gospel mystery, a specialized theological disclosure that has no equivalent register in the plain verb for knowing.Eph 1:9
Both
The Greek word regularly renders the causative side of the Hebrew verb, the sense of causing something to become known to someone rather than simply knowing it oneself.Gen 41:39Rom 9:22
It spans the whole ordinary human experience of knowing: facts, skills, people, even physical intimacy, a state a person possesses or experiences rather than an act of announcing something to someone else.Gen 4:1
It can describe God possessing a chosen, relational knowledge of a person, a bond of commitment rather than a piece of information handed over, which the Greek word for telling someone something never expresses.Gen 18:19
גָּלָהHebrew“to reveal: remove”the Hebrew word for uncovering or revealing what was hidden, the closest Old Testament counterpart for the disclosure sense here.
Covers plain, ordinary informing that has nothing hidden about it at all, passing along news, a personal update, or a request, not only exposing something once concealed.Col 4:7Php 4:6
Also does duty for simply knowing something oneself, or being able to say which of two things one would choose, a use with no counterpart in the Hebrew word.Php 1:22
Both
Both are the word each language reaches for when God discloses a plan or purpose that people could not have known on their own.Amo 3:7Eph 3:5
Both also describe one person passing along privileged information he has personally received to someone else who did not have it.1Sa 20:2Jhn 15:15
Keeps a strongly physical sense the Greek word never carries: stripping off actual clothing or covering, most often in the fixed legal phrase for sexual relations.Lev 18:6Rut 3:4
Also names the entirely separate act of a people going into exile, or a conqueror driving them from their land, a whole second meaning with no disclosure sense at all.Isa 5:132Ki 17:6Jer 52:28
What scholars say about gnōrizō
The standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ) and the theological dictionaries (TDNT, in Bultmann's γινώσκω article, and EDNT) treat the primary sense as "to make known, reveal, declare," the causative counterpart of γινώσκω "to know." There is no live disagreement about this sense. Two nuances within it are widely recognized: ordinary informing (Col 4:7;1 Cor 15:1) and the theologically weighted disclosure of the divine mystery, concentrated in Ephesians and Colossians (Eph 1:9; 3:3-10; Col 1:27), where the word carries the sense of an eschatological unveiling of what God had kept hidden. The one crux is Phil 1:22: BDAG assigns it to a distinct "to know" sense ("I cannot tell which I would choose"), followed by most modern versions and by Fee; O'Brien and others prefer to keep the normal causative force ("I do not declare which I would choose"). The LXX regularly uses the word to render the Hebrew הודיע, the causative of ידע "to know."
Sources
BDAG, s.v. γνωρίζωlexicon
LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v. γνωρίζωlexicon
Rudolf Bultmann, "γινώσκω κτλ.," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:689-719dictionary
Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), s.v. γνωρίζωdictionary
Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians, NIGTC (1991)commentary
Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (1995)commentary