Pool
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Kolymbethra names a pool, especially a bathing or washing place, and John uses it in two healing-related scenes. At Bethesda, the pool and its covered colonnades frame a place where many needy people wait and where one man explains his inability to reach the water when it is stirred.
Reader summary
Full entry for κολυμβήθρα (G2861) · Open the biblical lexicon
Kolymbethra names a pool, especially a bathing or washing place, and John uses it in two healing-related scenes. At Bethesda, the pool and its covered colonnades frame a place where many needy people wait and where one man explains his inability to reach the water when it is stirred.
The BSB source-word alignment has 3 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include pool (2), a pool (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 5:2. Its strongest book concentrations include John (3).
Kolymbethra names a pool, especially a bathing or washing place, and John uses it in two healing-related scenes. At Bethesda, the pool and its covered colonnades frame a place where many needy people wait and where one man explains his inability to reach the water when it is stirred. In John 9, Jesus sends the man born blind to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and the narrative explains the name as Sent.
The word does not make water magical or establish a ritual technique. It locates embodied need, waiting, obedience, and restored sight in concrete places. Kolymbethra helps teachers honor the physical setting while keeping the healing authority with Jesus and His word.
Kolymbethra names a pool in John's healing narratives. Bethesda frames long waiting and helplessness, while Siloam becomes the commanded place where the blind man washes and returns seeing.
Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool with five covered colonnades, which in Hebrew is called Bethesda.
John identifies Bethesda as a pool near the Sheep Gate with five covered colonnades.
“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am on my way, someone else goes in before me.”
The invalid describes his inability to get into the pool when the water is stirred.
Then He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing.
Jesus sends the blind man to wash in the Pool of Siloam, and the man returns seeing.
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. pool
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a pool, swimming-place
Read versea pool, swimming-place
Read versea pool, swimming-place
Read versea pool, swimming-place
Read versea pool, swimming-place
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 2 case and number patterns. 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.
κολυμβήθρα is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Kolymbethra teaches readers to pay attention to places of need without confusing place with power. Bethesda is a pool surrounded by waiting people, and the invalid's words reveal helplessness, competition, and delayed hope. John 9 moves differently: Jesus commands the blind man to wash at Siloam, and the man obeys and returns seeing. In both scenes, the water and location are real, but they do not explain the miracle by themselves.
The authority belongs to Jesus, whose word reaches people in physical weakness and public need. The term helps teachers avoid two errors: treating the pool as magical and treating the setting as irrelevant. John uses concrete places to display the works of God.
John.9.7
Kolymbethra refers to a pool or place for bathing and washing. The term is concrete and spatial, so theological claims must come from John's narrative rather than the noun alone.
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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