StrongerBible

pēgē

πηγή

GreekG4077“spring, fountain, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 5:29Jhn 4:6 (2×)Jhn 4:14Jas 3:11Jas 3:122Pe 2:17Rev 7:17Rev 8:10Rev 14:7Rev 16:4Rev 21:6
Word studyResearch-gradepay-GAYnoun

What pēgē means

a spring: a natural source of water rising from the ground, and by extension the source from which something flows

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The word names a spring: water that rises on its own from the ground, alive and moving, as opposed to a dug well or cistern that has to be hauled from with a bucket. That single picture holds every use together. Even when a writer stretches the word past literal water, the image of a source that something flows out of stays intact.

Most occurrences describe an actual spring, whether a real place (the spring at Jacob's ground where Jesus met the Samaritan woman) or the created springs of water in Revelation that God made and that judgment later spoils. From there the word carries a heavier freight. Jesus promises a spring welling up inside a person all the way to eternal life, and Revelation ends with a free drink from the spring of the water of life. This is the Bible's settled image for the life God gives.

The word can also point simply to the source of something, the place it issues from, without a literal pool of water in view. Mark uses it for the bodily source of a woman's bleeding, and other writers apply it to people, calling false teachers dry springs that promise water and give none. In every case the core idea is the same: the point from which something flows.

Nuances

1aa spring or fountain of water: a natural water source rising from the ground, as opposed to a dug well
Jhn 4:6 (2×)Jas 3:11Jas 3:122Pe 2:17Rev 8:10Rev 14:7Rev 16:4
1bthe spring of living water: the source of life God gives to his people, welling up to eternal life
Jhn 4:14Rev 7:17Rev 21:6
Jhn 4:14

What the spring of living water welling up inside the believer (John 4:14) refers to.

  • majorityThe Holy Spirit given to the believer, following the Evangelist's own explanation of living water as the Spirit in John 7:39.; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, AB 29 (Doubleday, 1966); Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John (Hendrickson, 2003)
  • minorityThe word of revelation that Jesus brings, received from outside yet kept as a permanent inner possession.; Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Westminster, 1971)
  • minorityWisdom, or a deliberate fusion of Old Testament symbols (Spirit, Wisdom, Torah, life) that resists reduction to a single referent.; Ben Witherington III, John's Wisdom (Westminster John Knox, 1995); Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, Sacra Pagina (Liturgical Press, 1998)
1csource, origin: the point from which something issues, pictured as a spring
TranslatabilityDirect
Mrk 5:29

What scholars say about pēgē

Every major lexicon agrees the base sense is a natural spring, water rising from the ground under its own energy, distinguished from a dug well or cistern (Greek phrear). BDAG groups the New Testament data as (1) a literal spring, fountain, flow and (2) an extended source, listing the source of blood in Mark 5:29 and the eschatological source of life in John 4:14, Revelation 7:17, and 21:6. Louw-Nida spreads the word across three semantic domains: geographical (a spring or well fed by a spring), physiological (the source of a hemorrhage in Mark), and relational (source, origin), and stresses the lexical contrast with phrear. LSJ traces the word from Homer, where the plural denotes the streams of rivers, through Classical metaphorical extensions to Plato's "source and beginning of motion." The etymology is uncertain; Frisk and Beekes judge it a Pre-Greek substrate word and reject derivation from pegnymi.

The theological weight comes from the Septuagint. Jeremiah 2:13 sets God as the fountain of living water over against broken cisterns, Psalm 35(36):10 crystallizes the formula "with you is the fountain of life," and LXX Proverbs turns "fountain of life" into a stock idiom (Johann Cook). Isaiah 49:10 LXX stands directly behind Revelation 7:17 (Aune, Beale), and Beale reads Revelation 21:6 as a deliberate fusion of Jeremiah 2:13 (fountain of living water) with Psalm 36:10 (fountain of life). Bauckham argues that Revelation deliberately polarizes the one word between salvation (7:17; 21:6; 22:1) and judgment (8:10; 16:4).

Three debates recur. In John 4 the narrator calls the site a spring while the woman twice calls it a well; nearly all commentators (Brown, Schnackenburg, Keener, Carson) read the alternation as a deliberate double meaning rather than careless variation. What the interior spring of John 4:14 refers to is the most argued point: the Holy Spirit (the dominant view, anchored in the Evangelist's own explanation of living water at 7:39; Brown, Barrett, Keener, Carson), the word of revelation Jesus brings (Bultmann), or Wisdom and a fusion of Old Testament symbols (Witherington, Moloney). Mark 5:29's "the source of her blood dried up" echoes Leviticus 12:7 LXX and signals ritual cleansing as well as physical healing (France, Marcus, Guelich), with Yarbro Collins adding a Greek medical resonance. 2 Peter 2:17 sharpens Jude 12's "waterless clouds" into "waterless springs," actively deceptive sources read against the background of Jeremiah 2:13 (Bauckham).

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, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. πηγήlexicon
  • LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. πηγήlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (1989), s.v. πηγήlexicon
  • TDNT VI, 112-17 (W. Michaelis)dictionary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1999)commentary
  • Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Hendrickson, 2003)commentary
  • Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Word, 1983)commentary
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8, AYB 27 (Doubleday, 2000)commentary
  • Johann Cook, The Septuagint of Proverbs, VTSup 69 (Brill, 1997)monograph

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

All attested forms of πηγή

nominative f s

πηγὴ

Mrk 5:29, Jhn 4:6, Jhn 4:14, Jas 3:11, Jas 3:12

accusative f p

πηγὰς

Rev 7:17, Rev 8:10, Rev 14:7, Rev 16:4

dative f s

πηγῇ

Jhn 4:6

genitive f s

πηγῆς

Rev 21:6

nominative f p

πηγαὶ

2Pe 2:17