What does μήν (mḗn) mean in the Bible?
G3376, mḗn, is the Greek masculine noun for a month or for months counted as a span. It is a calendar and duration word, not the Greek noun for an appointed opportunity, the general flow of time, or a year.
Greek · G3376
μήν
A month
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μήνG3376
Pronunciationmḗn
What does μήν (mḗn) mean in the Bible?
G3376, mḗn, is the Greek masculine noun for a month or for months counted as a span. It is a calendar and duration word, not the Greek noun for an appointed opportunity, the general flow of time, or a year.
Reader summary
Full entry for μήν (G3376) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G3376?
The BSB source-word alignment has 18 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include months (11), month (4), . . . (3).
Where does μήν (mḗn) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 1:24. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (6), Acts (5), Luke (5), Galatians (1).
Are there verse guides for μήν (mḗn)?
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
What This Word Actually Means
G3376, mḗn, is the Greek masculine noun for a month or for months counted as a span. It is a calendar and duration word, not the Greek noun for an appointed opportunity, the general flow of time, or a year. Its grammatical forms can locate an event within a sequence, state how long an activity continued, or coordinate a month with other units. The homographic emphatic particle in Hebrews 6:14 is a different identity and does not belong to the direct witness denominator for this month noun.
Luke uses a sixth month to coordinate Elizabeth's pregnancy with Gabriel's mission to Mary. The month supports the narrative sequence and the relationship between the two promised births, but the number six does not carry an independent spiritual code or create a fertility timetable for other families. Acts measures sustained ministry in months, showing that ordinary chronology can make patient teaching, travel, danger, and endurance visible without making duration a test of success.
Galatians lists months with days, seasons, and years in Paul's warning against returning to enslaving principles after receiving adoption in Christ. His argument concerns bondage and misplaced religious confidence; it must not become contempt for Jewish people, Israel's calendar, or ordinary Christian use of dates. Revelation uses months inside symbolic visions of bounded judgment and recurring new-creation fruit.
Those scenes receive their meaning from the vision as a whole. G3376 does not authorize date-setting, numerology, human violence, or promises of monthly material increase. The noun helps readers follow sequence and duration carefully while refusing to make a calendar unit bear theological claims that belong to God's acts, promises, judgments, and restoration.
source_lexicongrammaticalPassage contextBook contextPastoral application
How the Bible Uses It
G3376 appears in birth narratives, ministry itineraries, calendar observance, drought recollection, and Revelation's measured visions. Across those settings it consistently supplies a month as a chronological unit, while narrative and theological significance comes from what happens during the measured interval.
- Luke.1.26
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,
The sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy locates Gabriel's mission to Mary, coordinating two promised births without making the number independently symbolic.
- Acts.19.8
Then Paul went into the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.
Three months measure Paul's sustained bold reasoning in the synagogue about God's kingdom before the narrative moves to daily teaching elsewhere.
- Gal.4.10
You are observing special days and months and seasons and years!
Paul lists months with days, seasons, and years inside an appeal not to return to enslaving principles after receiving adoption in Christ.
- Rev.9.15
So the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
Month forms one coordinated temporal phrase with hour, day, and year in the sixth trumpet vision; the text does not invite calendar calculation.
- Rev.22.2
Down the middle of the main street of the city. On either side of the river stood a tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit and yielding a fresh crop for each month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
Each month marks recurring fruit beside the river of life in the holy city, where the leaves serve the healing of the nations.
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders Itmonths11×Luke 1:24, Luke 1:56, Acts 7:20, Acts 19:8
month4×Luke 1:26, Luke 1:36, Revelation 9:15, Revelation 22:2
. . .3×Luke 4:25, Acts 18:11, James 5:17
Show sample aligned rows
Luke 1:24μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine PluralLuke 1:26μηνὶtomonthNoun - Dative Masculine SingularLuke 1:36μὴνtomonthNoun - Nominative Masculine SingularLuke 1:56μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine PluralLuke 4:25μῆναςto. . .Noun - Accusative Masculine PluralActs 7:20μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine PluralActs 18:11μῆναςto. . .Noun - Accusative Masculine PluralActs 19:8μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine PluralActs 20:3μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine PluralActs 28:11μῆναςtomonthsNoun - Accusative Masculine Plural
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowLuke 1:24
Aligned rows18
Books represented5
Luke5Acts5Galatians1James1Revelation6
Source forms
μῆνας14xmēnasLuke 1:24, Luke 1:56, Luke 4:25, Acts 7:20
μῆνα2xmēnaRevelation 9:15, Revelation 22:2
μὴν1xmēnLuke 1:36
μηνὶ1xmēniLuke 1:26
Parsing patterns
Noun - Accusative Masculine Plural14xLuke 1:24, Luke 1:56, Luke 4:25, Acts 7:20
Noun - Accusative Masculine Singular2xRevelation 9:15, Revelation 22:2
Noun - Dative Masculine Singular1xLuke 1:26
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular1xLuke 1:36
Using This Word Well
Be careful not to...
- Use months to describe waiting honestly without promising when conception, healing, employment, reconciliation, or visible ministry fruit must arrive.
- Discuss religious calendars without caricaturing Jewish neighbors, erasing Israel's covenant history, or binding consciences where the passage does not.
- Let Revelation form repentance, endurance, worship, and hope rather than speculative certainty, panic, or fascination with violent timetables.
Avoid claiming...
- Do not claim that G3376 means an appointed divine moment, a year, a season, or the general concept of time simply because those units appear nearby.
- Do not claim that a biblical month number supplies a code for dating Christ's return, identifying current events, or predicting personal outcomes.
- Do not claim that Galatians 4:10 condemns Jewish identity, all Jewish calendar observance, or every voluntary Christian pattern of dated remembrance.
Key Verse and Form Guides
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Evidence Summary
Greek word. a month
Source Gloss
a month
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 18 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Luke 1:24Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseLuke 1:26Noun Dative Singular Masculine
μηνὶmhni
a month
Read verseLuke 1:36Noun Nominative Singular Masculine
μὴνmhn
a month
Read verseLuke 1:56Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseLuke 4:25Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseActs 7:20Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseActs 18:11Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseActs 19:8Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseActs 20:3Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseActs 28:11Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseGalatians 4:10Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆνας,mhnav
a month
Read verseJames 5:17Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseRevelation 9:5Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseRevelation 9:10Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
Read verseRevelation 9:15Noun Accusative Singular Masculine
μῆναmhna
a month
Read verseRevelation 11:2Noun Accusative Plural Masculine
μῆναςmhnav
a month
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 this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 5 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.
Form patterns5Aligned forms19Case patternAccusative (16)Number patternPlural (14)
Nominative · Singular · MasculineLuke 1:361×
Dative · Singular · MasculineLuke 1:261×
Accusative · Plural · MasculineLuke 1:24 · Luke 1:56 · Luke 4:25 · Acts 7:20 · Acts 18:11 · Acts 19:8 · Acts 20:3 · Acts 28:11 · Gal 4:10 · Jas 5:17 · Rev 9:5 · Rev 9:10 · Rev 11:2 · Rev 13:514×
Heb 6:141×
Word Origins
μήν is a primary word - no further derivation.
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
Luke 1:26 uses a month as a quiet piece of narrative architecture. Elizabeth's sixth month locates Gabriel's visit to Mary and links two households within God's unfolding promise. The chronological marker matters, but the saving significance belongs to God's word, the identity of Jesus, the Holy Spirit's work, and the faithful responses narrated around it. The number itself is not a code, and Elizabeth's conception is not a schedule promised to every person who longs for a child.
Acts shows months doing another kind of work: they measure sustained witness, reasoning, travel, and changing circumstances in apostolic ministry. Galatians 4 places months inside a serious warning, yet Paul's concern is a return to enslaving principles and religious observance as bondage after adoption in Christ. The verse should not be isolated into contempt for Jews or a ban on all calendars.
Revelation then places the same noun in sharply different visions. In chapter 9, a month stands within a coordinated time of judgment that still exposes humanity's refusal to repent. In chapter 22, each month marks fresh fruit by the river of life for the healing of the nations. The contrast does not give interpreters a secret timetable. It shows that a month is a measure whose theological character comes from the scene.
Faithful teaching can honor patient duration and bounded waiting without promising that grief, infertility, illness, conflict, or ministry fruit will change by a chosen month.
Anchor passage
Luke.1.26
Doctrinal connections
- Luke 1 uses Elizabeth's sixth month to coordinate the forerunner's birth with the announcement of Jesus, the promised Davidic King.
- Acts 19 lets three months display sustained public reasoning about God's kingdom before opposition changes the location of Paul's teaching.
- Galatians 4 places months within Paul's contrast between adoption in Christ and renewed slavery to weak and worthless principles.
- Revelation 9 coordinates month with hour, day, and year inside divine judgment that does not produce repentance among the survivors.
- Revelation 22 gives each month fresh fruit beside the river of life, joining recurring provision to the healing of the nations.
- Distinct biblical words name occasion, duration, year, season, and month; canonical theology respects their relationships without collapsing their identities.
G3376 is a masculine noun with nominative mḗn, genitive mēnós, and governed singular and plural case forms. The exact local BSB word table supplies only month-noun witnesses; Hebrews 6:14 uses the homographic emphatic particle and is excluded from this identity's denominator.
From Old to New Testament
Israel's Scriptures count months and order worship with Hebrew month and new-moon vocabulary distinct from G3376. The New Testament continues to use months for narrative sequence, ministry duration, warning, judgment, and hope. Galatians must be read through Christ's redeeming work without erasing Israel's story or turning chronological difference into contempt.