StrongerBible

pente

πέντε

GreekG4002five

Appears 38 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 14:17Mat 14:19Mat 16:9Mat 25:2 (2×)Mat 25:15Mat 25:16 (2×)Mat 25:20 (4×)
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyPEN-tehadj

What pente means

five: the cardinal number 5

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is simply the number five. It counts things the way any number does, and in the New Testament it always means a plain quantity of five: five loaves, five sparrows, five husbands, five talents, five months, five kings. There is no hidden or symbolic sense to decode; when a writer says five, he means five.

What makes the word memorable is the company it keeps in some of the best-known scenes in the Gospels. Five loaves feed the five thousand. Five wise and five foolish young women wait for the bridegroom. A servant is given five talents and trades them into five more. A man begs off the great banquet because he has bought five yoke of oxen. Paul would rather speak five plain words that teach than ten thousand in an unknown tongue. In every case the count is literal, but the round, easily pictured number helps the story stick in the memory.

Because it is an ordinary counting word, it reads the same in any language. The only care a reader needs is to keep it as a quantity and not to load it with meanings the text never gives it.

Mat 14:17Mat 14:19Mat 16:9Mat 25:2 (2×)Mat 25:15Mat 25:16 (2×)Mat 25:20 (4×)Mrk 6:38Mrk 6:41Mrk 8:19Luk 1:24Luk 9:13

What scholars say about pente

The cardinal numeral πέντε ("five") is an indeclinable Indo-European inheritance with secure cognates across the family, and the standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ) record only the plain numeric value with no semantic complications. In the New Testament it functions purely as a count.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. πέντεlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. πέντεlexicon

All attested forms of πέντε

adj

πέντε

Mat 14:17, Mat 14:19, Mat 16:9, Mat 25:2, Mat 25:2, Mat 25:15, Mat 25:16, Mat 25:16