Godly
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G2318 describes a person as reverent toward God or as one who worships God. Its only New Testament occurrence is John 9:31, where the man healed from blindness argues that God listens to the person who worships Him and does His will.
Reader summary
Full entry for θεοσεβής (G2318) · Open the biblical lexicon
G2318 describes a person as reverent toward God or as one who worships God. Its only New Testament occurrence is John 9:31, where the man healed from blindness argues that God listens to the person who worships Him and does His will.
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include worships [Him] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 9:31. Its strongest book concentrations include John (1).
G2318 describes a person as reverent toward God or as one who worships God. Its only New Testament occurrence is John 9:31, where the man healed from blindness argues that God listens to the person who worships Him and does His will. The speaker is neither Jesus nor the narrator. He is responding to interrogators who insist Jesus is a sinner, and he reasons from the healing he has received toward a growing confession about Jesus.
The adjective therefore belongs to the man's contrast between the accused sinner and the obedient worshiper. It should not be detached as a complete doctrine that God never hears any sinner in any circumstance. John 9:31 supplies one speaker, one sentence, and one developing argument; those limits are part of the word's responsible interpretation.
G2318 occurs once, in the healed man's argument in John 9:31. It describes the person God hears as one who worships Him and does His will.
We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will.
The adjective describes the worshiper of God in the healed man's contrast. Speaker, dispute, and developing understanding must remain visible.
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.
Greek word. Fear of God expressed through reverent devotion, emphasizing awe-based religious practice rather than mere piety
Fear of God expressed through reverent devotion, emphasizing awe-based religious practice rather than mere piety
(θεός, σέβομαι), [in LXX for אֱלֹהִים יָרֵא, Exo.18:21, al. ;] God-fearing, godly: Jhn.9:31.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
devout, pious
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 this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
θεοσεβής is built from these roots:
G2318 shows a new disciple reasoning courageously with limited but growing understanding. The healed man does not yet possess the chapter's final Christological clarity, yet he refuses the authorities' demand that he call his healer a sinner. His one use of the adjective joins worship of God with doing God's will, then uses that description inside an argument about whose work the healing reveals.
A teacher can honor the man's truthful courage without promoting his sentence into an exhaustive doctrine of prayer. Scripture includes repentant sinners who cry to God for mercy, and John 9 itself continues beyond verse 31. The best pastoral frame is therefore modest: reverence toward God is not empty profession, the man's reasoning advances toward Jesus, and faithful testimony can grow under pressure while still needing fuller revelation.
Jhn.9.31
The sole form is a nominative singular masculine adjective functioning substantivally: the God-revering or worshiping person. The paired participial clause in the verse adds doing God's will.
The sole John occurrence can be explained without adding a cross-testament claim. Broader teaching on reverence, obedience, sin, and prayer should be developed from its own passages rather than loaded into G2318.
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Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain