A "lance"
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G3057 is the noun for the spear in John 19:34, its only governed occurrence. After the soldiers find Jesus already dead and do not break His legs, one soldier pierces His side with a spear, and blood and water immediately flow out.
Reader summary
Full entry for λόγχη (G3057) · Open the biblical lexicon
G3057 is the noun for the spear in John 19:34, its only governed occurrence. After the soldiers find Jesus already dead and do not break His legs, one soldier pierces His side with a spear, and blood and water immediately flow out.
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include with a spear (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 19:34. Its strongest book concentrations include John (1).
G3057 is the noun for the spear in John 19:34, its only governed occurrence. After the soldiers find Jesus already dead and do not break His legs, one soldier pierces His side with a spear, and blood and water immediately flow out. The noun identifies the weapon used. It does not itself state why the soldier acts, offer a medical explanation, prove a clinical mechanism, identify the eyewitness, or carry a doctrine of atonement, sacraments, or prophecy.
The following verses emphasize truthful testimony and connect the events with Scripture, so those themes may be taught from the paragraph while remaining distinct from the spear noun's lexical meaning. This companion stays at that single-verse boundary.
One exact G3057 form occurs in John 19:34. It names the spear with which a soldier pierces Jesus' side after the soldiers find Him already dead.
Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
The noun names the physical instrument in the narrated action and should not be made to supply unstated motives or medical claims.
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. A soldier's piercing weapon, appearing in the Crucifixion narrative as instrument of Christ's final wound.
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.
a lance, spear
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.
λόγχη is a primary word - no further derivation.
G3057 gives readers one concrete instrument in the passion narrative. John says the soldiers find Jesus already dead, and then one soldier pierces His side with a spear. The verse reports blood and water, while the following testimony and Scripture statements direct readers beyond bare description. Careful preaching should preserve both levels. The spear is a real weapon in a real act, not a free-standing symbol.
The paragraph is also written to support belief and to show scriptural correspondence. The text does not state the soldier's motive, provide a medical diagnosis, name the person who saw, or explain blood and water through a sacramental formula. Those questions should not be answered by loading claims into a noun that occurs only once.
John.19.33-37
The sole governed form is a dative feminine singular noun used instrumentally with the piercing verb, which English expresses as with a spear.
John explicitly connects the passion events with Scripture in verses 36-37. Teachers should follow John's stated connections and avoid making the spear noun itself carry every Passover, piercing, or sacramental conclusion.
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