Bread (as raised) or a loaf
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G740 is the ordinary noun for bread, a loaf, or food in settings where bread represents the meal. The local artifact reflects about 97 uses across ordinary hunger, provision, the bread of the Presence, feeding signs, prayer, table fellowship, the Last Supper, and Jesus' claim to be the bread of life.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἄρτος (G740) · Open the biblical lexicon
G740 is the ordinary noun for bread, a loaf, or food in settings where bread represents the meal. The local artifact reflects about 97 uses across ordinary hunger, provision, the bread of the Presence, feeding signs, prayer, table fellowship, the Last Supper, and Jesus' claim to be the bread of life.
The BSB source-word alignment has 97 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include bread (55), loaves (19), . . . (6), consecrated bread (3), loaf (3).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 4:3. Its strongest book concentrations include John (24), Mark (21), Matthew (21), Luke (15).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
G740 is the ordinary noun for bread, a loaf, or food in settings where bread represents the meal. The local artifact reflects about 97 uses across ordinary hunger, provision, the bread of the Presence, feeding signs, prayer, table fellowship, the Last Supper, and Jesus' claim to be the bread of life. Matthew 4:4 and Deuteronomy 8:3 refuse to make bread the whole of human life.
Matthew 6:11 teaches dependence on the Father for daily provision. John 6 moves from multiplied loaves to Jesus Himself as the bread of life, while the Supper accounts identify the bread Jesus gives with His body in that covenant meal. Acts uses breaking-bread language in contexts that may describe shared meals, the Lord's Supper, or their overlap. The noun alone does not settle Eucharistic theology or make every meal sacramental.
The local Greek index currently counts about 97 occurrences of artos as exact Strong's ID G740; its NT witnesses are concentrated in the Gospels and carry significant theological weight in 1 Corinthians and Acts. The word anchors the feeding miracles, the bread-of-life discourse, the Lord's Prayer, the Last Supper accounts, and the post-resurrection meals.
But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus answers the temptation with Deuteronomy 8:3, where Israel's manna dependence teaches that life rests on everything proceeding from God's mouth. The verse does not demean bodily hunger.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Jesus teaches His disciples to ask the Father for daily bread. The rare adjective translated daily is debated, so the petition clearly expresses dependence without proving a complete economic rule about quantity.
Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst.
After the feeding sign and the crowd's manna discussion, Jesus identifies Himself as the bread of life and calls hearers to come and believe. John 6 should first be read as a claim about Jesus and the life He gives.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.”
During the meal Jesus blesses, breaks, and gives bread while identifying it with His body. First Corinthians 11 supplies the later church instruction about proclaiming His death in the Supper.
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
The Jerusalem believers devote themselves to teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer. Acts 2:46 also describes meals in homes, so interpreters should acknowledge the possible ordinary, Supper, or overlapping senses.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Staple food source representing sustenance, or metaphorically Christ as life-giving spiritual nourishment in John 6.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 99 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
bread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
Read versebread, a loaf, food
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 8 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 97 lexical occurrence verses.
ἄρτος is built from this root:
Represents divine provision and anticipates Christ as the Bread of Life. John 6:22–40
Represents Christ as life-sustaining provision. Luke 9:10–17
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G740 appears in ordinary and highly charged settings, so teachers should let each passage determine its force. Hungry crowds receive actual loaves, disciples ask the Father for daily provision, and Jesus warns that bread is not the whole source of life. John 6 begins with eaten bread and then centers the discourse on Jesus as the bread of life, calling people to come and believe.
The Last Supper narratives and First Corinthians 11 give bread a defined role in the church's remembrance and proclamation of Christ's death. Acts may use breaking bread for ordinary meals, the Supper, or a setting where the two overlap. These connections support embodied care and Christ-centered hope, but the noun itself does not create a theology of social ministry, sacramental presence, or every Christian meal.
John.6.35
G740 can refer to bread, a loaf, or food represented by bread. Proposed etymologies do not establish whether a loaf is leavened, sacramental, literal, or figurative. Modifiers and context identify ordinary bread, the bread of the Presence, multiplied loaves, table bread, or the metaphor in John 6.
The New Testament itself connects G740 with Deuteronomy 8, wilderness manna, the bread of the Presence, David's action, and Passover settings. John 6 explicitly compares the wilderness bread with the bread the Father gives from heaven. Broader claims about tabernacle bread, the Supper, or final creation require their own passages rather than inference from the noun.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
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Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain