What does κατάγνυμι (katágnymi) mean in the Bible?
Katagnumi means to break, fracture, or shatter something physically. Its four New Testament occurrences belong to two sharply different settings.
Greek · G2608
κατάγνυμι
To break
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κατάγνυμι G2608
Pronunciation katágnymi
What does κατάγνυμι (katágnymi) mean in the Bible?
Katagnumi means to break, fracture, or shatter something physically. Its four New Testament occurrences belong to two sharply different settings.
Reader summary
Full entry for κατάγνυμι (G2608) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G2608?
The BSB source-word alignment has 4 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include broke (1), broken (1), He will not break (1), they did not break (1).
Where does κατάγνυμι (katágnymi) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 12:20. Its strongest book concentrations include John (3), Matthew (1).
What This Word Actually Means
Katagnumi means to break, fracture, or shatter something physically. Its four New Testament occurrences belong to two sharply different settings. Matthew cites the servant text, saying that He will not break a bruised reed, an image of the Messiah's gentle faithfulness toward what is already damaged. John 19 uses the same verb for the Roman practice of breaking the legs of crucified men.
The soldiers break the legs of the two beside Jesus but do not break His because He is already dead; John then interprets the event through Scripture in the following verses. The verb itself names physical breaking. Teachers should let Matthew's quotation and John's Passion narrative supply the theological force, handle bodily violence soberly, and avoid making the shared verb erase the difference between metaphorical reed imagery and literal crucifixion trauma.
How the Bible Uses It
Katagnumi means to break or fracture, appearing in a servant promise about the bruised and in John's concrete account of leg-breaking at the crucifixion.
- Matt.12.20
A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish, till He leads justice to victory.
Matthew's cited servant passage uses the verb negatively to portray the Messiah's gentleness toward the bruised.
- John.19.31
It was the day of Preparation, and the next day was a High Sabbath. In order that the bodies would not remain on the cross during the Sabbath, the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed.
The request to break the crucified men's legs belongs to the brutal practical setting of Roman crucifixion.
- John.19.32
So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and those of the other.
The soldiers carry out the requested breaking on the two men crucified beside Jesus.
- John.19.33
But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.
The soldiers do not break Jesus' legs because they recognize that He is already dead.
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders It broke 1× John 19:32
broken 1× John 19:31
He will not break 1× Matthew 12:20
they did not break 1× John 19:33
Show sample aligned rows
Matthew 12:20 κατεάξει to He will not break Verb - Future Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular John 19:31 κατεαγῶσιν to broken Verb - Aorist Subjunctive Passive - 3rd Person Plural John 19:32 κατέαξαν to broke Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural John 19:33 κατέαξαν to they did not break Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Matthew 12:20
Aligned rows 4
Books represented 2
Matthew 1 John 3
Source forms
κατέαξαν 2x kateaxan John 19:32, John 19:33
κατεαγῶσιν 1x kateagōsin John 19:31
κατεάξει 1x kateaxei Matthew 12:20
Parsing patterns
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural 2x John 19:32, John 19:33
Verb - Aorist Subjunctive Passive - 3rd Person Plural 1x John 19:31
Verb - Future Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular 1x Matthew 12:20
Using This Word Well
Be careful not to...
- Handle crucifixion violence without sensational detail or careless application to suffering people.
- Do not claim the verb alone establishes Scripture fulfillment; follow John's explicit interpretation in John 19:36.
Avoid claiming...
- Do not claim katagnumi itself means fulfillment of prophecy.
- Do not claim that Christ's gentleness means He never confronts sin or brings justice.
- Do not use the crucifixion references to glorify bodily violence.
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Breaking with force, often deliberately—emphasizes the violent or forceful nature of the breaking action.
Strong's G2608
Lexical occurrences 4 verses Greek text appearances 4 times Word forms 2 forms 4 references Verse guides 0 guides
Source Gloss
to break
Extended definition Source: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Breaking with force, often deliberately—emphasizes the violent or forceful nature of the breaking action.
to break: with accusative of thing(s), Mat.12:20 (LXX), Jhn.19:31-33.
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
4 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Matthew 12:20 Verb Third Person Singular Future Active Indicative
κατεάξει, kateaxei
I break in pieces
Read verse John 19:31 Verb Third Person Plural Second Aorist Passive Subjunctive
κατεαγῶσιν kateagwsin
I break in pieces
Read verse John 19:32 Verb Third Person Plural Aorist Active Indicative
κατέαξαν kateaxan
I break in pieces
Read verse John 19:33 Verb Third Person Plural Aorist Active Indicative
κατέαξαν kateaxan
I break in pieces
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.
Grammatical Forms
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Form groups 2 Aligned forms 4 Tenses Aorist, Future Voices Active, Passive
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Tenses
Voices
Indicative states a fact or reality 3×
Aorist Active John 19:32 · John 19:33 2×
Future Active Matt 12:20 1×
Subjunctive possibility, probability, or purpose 1×
Aorist Passive John 19:31 1×
Discourse Aspect
How this verb appears across 4 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect
Tense
aorist 3 future 1
Voice
active 3 passive 1
Mood
indicative 3 subjunctive 1
NT Occurrences
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Word Origins
κατάγνυμι is built from these roots:
Part of These Phrases
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
For the Preacher and Teacher
Katagnumi places physical breaking before the reader without making every occurrence mean the same thing. In Matthew 12, the unbroken bruised reed belongs to Isaiah's servant portrait and displays the Messiah's patient, gentle mission until justice reaches victory. In John 19, leg-breaking is a concrete feature of the crucifixion scene. The soldiers perform it on the two others but not on Jesus, whose death they recognize.
John interprets what follows through Scripture, so teachers should trace his own sequence rather than treating the dictionary meaning as a fulfillment formula. The pastoral movement is sober: Christ does not crush the bruised, and He truly enters the violent reality of death. Preaching should honor suffering bodies, avoid graphic excess, and keep the saving significance grounded in the Gospel's full testimony.
Anchor passage
John.19.33
Doctrinal connections
- Matt.12.20: the servant does not break the bruised reed as He faithfully brings justice to victory.
- John.19.31: the request for leg-breaking reveals the bodily brutality and Sabbath timing of the crucifixion scene.
- John.19.32: the soldiers break the legs of the two crucified beside Jesus.
- John.19.33: Jesus' legs remain unbroken because He is already dead.
- John.19.34-35: the eyewitness testimony immediately confirms Jesus' death through the spear thrust.
- John.19.36: John explicitly relates the unbroken bones to Scripture after narrating the soldiers' action.
Katagnumi is a verb of physical breaking or fracturing. Negation is crucial in Matthew 12 and John 19:33, where the text emphasizes what is not broken.
From Old to New Testament
Isaiah's servant imagery, Passover bone language, and the righteous sufferer's preserved bones contribute to the canonical background John and Matthew use, but each connection must follow the evangelists' own citations.
Sources
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain