A (mass of) rock (literally or figuratively)
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G4073 names rock, a rocky mass, or bedrock. Its fifteen governed forms include literal rock, rocky soil, a foundation image, a tomb cut from rock, rocks split at Jesus' death, apocalyptic hiding places, and several theological metaphors.
Reader summary
Full entry for πέτρα (G4073) · Open the biblical lexicon
G4073 names rock, a rocky mass, or bedrock. Its fifteen governed forms include literal rock, rocky soil, a foundation image, a tomb cut from rock, rocks split at Jesus' death, apocalyptic hiding places, and several theological metaphors.
The BSB source-word alignment has 15 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include rock (7), rocks (3), a rock (2), rocky ground (2), [the] rock (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 7:24. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (5), Luke (3), 1 Corinthians (2), Revelation (2).
G4073 names rock, a rocky mass, or bedrock. Its fifteen governed forms include literal rock, rocky soil, a foundation image, a tomb cut from rock, rocks split at Jesus' death, apocalyptic hiding places, and several theological metaphors. The noun supplies a material or figurative image, but each passage determines its referent and force. A rock can signify stability, shallow soil, stumbling, burial space, cosmic disturbance, judgment, or Christ.
Matthew 7:24-25 and Luke 6:48 compare hearing and doing Jesus' words to building on rock. The image commends obedient stability, not immunity from storms or a formula guaranteeing material success. Matthew 16:18 joins Peter's name, "this rock," Jesus' church-building promise, and the gates of Hades. Christian traditions differ over whether the immediate emphasis falls on Peter, his confession, Christ, or their relation. The noun alone cannot settle the whole ecclesiological debate or authorize unaccountable leaders.
Paul says Israel drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them and that the rock was Christ, while Romans and 1 Peter use rock in scriptural stumbling texts. These passages must not be turned into contempt for Jewish people or claims that God discarded Israel. The literal tomb and shattered rocks keep the material sense visible, and Revelation's rocks belong to apocalyptic judgment imagery. Faithful teaching follows each context, centers Christ where the text does, and refuses to flatten every rock into one symbol.
Fifteen governed forms range from literal geology and rocky soil to foundation, church, Christological, stumbling, burial, and apocalyptic imagery.
A wise man who built his house on the rock
Wisdom is defined by hearing and practicing Jesus' words, and the tested foundation displays the difference.
On this rock I will build My church
Jesus is the builder and the church belongs to him. The precise rock referent remains an interpretive question that the noun cannot answer alone.
That rock was Christ
Paul explicitly supplies the Christological identification inside a warning against presumption and idolatry.
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. Rock as solid, immovable mass, distinct from detached stone; symbolizes stability and foundation.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
rock
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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 7 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 15 lexical occurrence verses.
πέτρα is built from this root:
Symbolizes the stable foundation grounded in Christ’s authoritative word. Luke 6:46–49
Represents Christ as secure ground for salvation. Matthew 7:24–27
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G4073 is strong imagery whose meaning remains passage-governed. In the Sermon on the Mount, rock supports a house because hearing becomes obedience. In the seed parable, rock beneath thin soil prevents durable growth. Matthew 16 places the word inside Jesus' promise to build his church, a sentence that deserves humility across historic interpretations. The tomb texts use literal rock, Paul names Christ as the wilderness rock, and Romans and 1 Peter speak of stumbling.
Revelation turns rocks into impossible refuges before divine judgment. Preaching should let this range deepen contextual reading, not create a single rock code or transfer Christ's reliability to leaders, institutions, buildings, or political projects.
Matt.7.24
Seven morphology labels account for the fifteen forms, with the accusative feminine singular occurring most often. First Corinthians 10:4 contains two tokens. Inflection marks sentence function, while the surrounding discourse decides whether πέτρα denotes terrain, structural support, a figurative referent, or apocalyptic scenery.
Israel's Scriptures use rock for terrain, refuge, divine provision, God, and stumbling. New Testament writers sometimes activate those specific contexts, especially in wilderness and stone citations, but shared vocabulary alone does not prove that every rock text has the same referent.
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