StrongerBible

nikaō

νικάω

GreekG3528“overcome, conquer, ...”

Appears 28 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 11:22Jhn 16:33Rom 3:4Rom 12:21 (2×)1Jn 2:131Jn 2:141Jn 4:41Jn 5:4 (2×)1Jn 5:5Rev 2:7Rev 2:11Rev 2:17Rev 2:26Rev 3:5Rev 3:12Rev 3:21 (2×)Rev 5:5Rev 6:2 (2×)Rev 11:7Rev 12:11Rev 13:7Rev 15:2Rev 17:14Rev 21:7
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradenee-KAH-ohverb

What nikaō means

to conquer, to overcome, to win out: to come through a struggle as the victor.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

At its core this verb names winning a contest. In the wider Greek world it was the language of armies that won battles, athletes who took the prize wreath, and litigants who won their case in court, and it could also describe mastering one's own desires. In the first century it was charged far beyond a plain dictionary sense: it was the vocabulary of empire, the boast on Caesar's coins and the name of the winged goddess of Victory whose image was everywhere. Any reader hearing it pictured the strong crushing the weak.

What makes the New Testament use of the word remarkable is that its writers take this language of force and turn it inside out. The decisive victory is won by Jesus, and he wins it not by overpowering his enemies but by dying. Revelation drives the point home: the Lion who has conquered turns out to be a slain Lamb. So when the word is then applied to Christians, their conquering is not military or competitive at all. They overcome by belonging to the one who already won, by holding to their confession of him, and by refusing to give in even when it costs them their lives.

The senses below are not different words but different settings for this one idea of winning out:

  • Christ's own finished victory
  • the believer's share in it through faith
  • the everyday moral version of overcoming evil with good
  • a courtroom vindication
  • turned around, the hostile power that appears to win by killing the faithful

Across all of them the basic meaning holds steady; only who is winning, and how, changes.

Nuances

1aof Jesus: to win the decisive, finished victory over the world, evil, and death.
Jhn 16:33Rev 3:21 (2×)Rev 5:5Rev 17:14
1bof the faithful: to overcome by sharing in Christ's victory, holding to the confession of him, and staying loyal even to death.
1Jn 2:131Jn 2:141Jn 4:41Jn 5:4 (2×)1Jn 5:5Rev 2:7Rev 2:11Rev 2:17Rev 2:26Rev 3:5Rev 3:12Rev 3:21 (2×)
1cto overcome evil with good: the everyday refusal to let wrong get the better of you, answering it with good instead.
Rom 12:21 (2×)
1dto win one's case, to be vindicated: to prevail when one is judged or put on trial.
Rom 3:4
1eof a hostile power: to conquer or defeat the faithful, in the worldly sense of overpowering and killing them.
Rev 6:2 (2×)Rev 11:7Rev 13:7
1fto overpower, to get the better of: a stronger party overcoming and disarming a weaker one.
Luk 11:22

What scholars say about nikaō

The standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ, Louw-Nida) give a stable fourfold range for νικάω built on the noun νίκη: military victory, athletic triumph, forensic success, and metaphorical mastery over passions or opponents. Bauernfeind (TDNT 4:942-945) traces how by the imperial period the term had become saturated with the religious-political discourse of Nike/Victoria and the emperor as νικητής, and argues that the Johannine writings effect the decisive theological transformation, filling the verb with christological content (John 16:33). Friesen (Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John, 2001) documents the imperial victory discourse pervading the seven cities of Revelation. The Hellenistic-Jewish martyrology of 4 Maccabees (1:11; 9:30; 17:11-16) supplies the crucial intermediary, recasting the Torah-faithful martyr as the true victor who conquers the tyrant by endurance rather than by force; deSilva and van Henten establish this background. On the Pauline side, Cranfield, Moo, Dunn, and Jewett read Romans 3:4 as forensic vindication parallel to being justified, Romans 8:37 (the coinage ὑπερνικάω) as cruciform hyper-victory through suffering, and Romans 12:21 as the everyday ethic of overcoming evil with good, drawing on Testament of Benjamin 4:3 and Proverbs 25:21-22. On the Johannine side, Brown, Lieu, Smalley, and Jobes read the perfect-tense uses as realized eschatology and converge on a christological reading of 1 John 5:4-5, where faith is the victory because it joins the believer to the one who conquered. For Revelation, Bauckham (Theology of the Book of Revelation; Climax of Prophecy) is foundational: the Lion-revealed-as-Lamb of 5:5-6 forges a new symbol of conquest by sacrificial death that governs every later use, and the inverse usage at 11:7 and 13:7 (the beast conquers the saints) is resolved by two vantage points, so that from heaven the beast's apparent victory is his defeat. Beale, Osborne, Aune, Koester, Johns, and Blount debate whether ὁ νικῶν denotes all persevering Christians, specifically martyrs, or contextual overcomers, increasingly treating these as integrated dimensions of one participatory victory expressed in confessional witness.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), s.v. νικάωlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v. νικάωlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 39.57lexicon
  • Otto Bauernfeind, "νικάω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 4:942-945dictionary
  • Steven J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John (2001)monograph
  • David A. deSilva, 4 Maccabees: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Sinaiticus (2006)commentary
  • Jan Willem van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People (1997)monograph
  • Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (1993)monograph
  • Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (1993)monograph
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (1999)commentary
  • Loren L. Johns, The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John, WUNT 2/167 (2003)monograph
  • Craig R. Koester, Revelation, Anchor Yale Bible 38A (2014)commentary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation, WBC 52A-C (1997-1998)commentary
  • Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John, Anchor Bible 30 (1982)commentary
  • Judith M. Lieu, I, II, & III John, New Testament Library (2008)commentary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, ICC (1975-1979)commentary
  • Robert Jewett, Romans, Hermeneia (2007)commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of νικάω

present active participle nominative m s

νικῶν

1Jn 5:5, Rev 2:11, Rev 2:26, Rev 3:5, Rev 3:12, Rev 3:21, Rev 6:2, Rev 21:7

perfect active indicative 2p

νενικήκατε

1Jn 2:13, 1Jn 2:14, 1Jn 4:4

aorist active subjunctive 3s

νικήσῃ

Luk 11:22, Rev 6:2

future active indicative 3s

νικήσει

Rev 11:7, Rev 17:14

present active participle dative m s

νικῶντι

Rev 2:7, Rev 2:17

aorist active indicative 1s

ἐνίκησα

Rev 3:21

aorist active indicative 3p

ἐνίκησαν

Rev 12:11

aorist active indicative 3s

ἐνίκησεν

Rev 5:5

aorist active infinitive

νικῆσαι

Rev 13:7

aorist active participle nominative f s

νικήσασα

1Jn 5:4

future active indicative 2s

νικήσεις

Rom 3:4

perfect active indicative 1s

νενίκηκα

Jhn 16:33

present active imperative 2s

νίκα

Rom 12:21

present active indicative 3s

νικᾷ

1Jn 5:4

present active participle accusative m p

νικῶντας

Rev 15:2

present passive imperative 2s

νικῶ

Rom 12:21