Lexicon

G1492 - oida

Strong's: G1492 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: oy'-dah Part of speech: verb. Morphologically the perfect-active of an unused present εἴδω (eidō, "to see"), but functioning as a present in NT Greek; the perfect form ("I have seen") carries present sense ("I know"). Hebrew equivalent (LXX): H3045 - yada, yadaʿ (to know), the same root that underlies G1097 - ginosko; oida is the LXX's preferred rendering where yadaʿ names settled-known state rather than coming-to-know process. NT occurrences: ~321, distributed across the whole NT corpus (Synoptics ~80, John ~85, Pauline ~95, Catholic + Hebrews ~50, Acts + Revelation ~30). The Johannine concentration is high but less skewed than ginōskō.

Semantic range (Thayer / BDAG)

To know with settled / intuitive certainty. The complete, unmediated sense of knowing; knowing-as-having-known; standing in a relation of established acquaintance with a fact, person, or skill. Not the process of coming to know (which is the ginōskō register) but the state of having known.
To know how, to have learned a skill. Oida + infinitive = "know how to": Matt 7:11, "you, being evil, know how (oidate) to give good gifts"; Phil 4:12, "I know how (oida) to get along with humble means and know how (oida) to live in prosperity."
To know about, to be acquainted with a person. Matt 26:72, Peter's denial: "I do not know (oida) the man." Used negatively, ouk oida = repudiation, disavowal, non-acknowledgment.
To know publicly / to acknowledge / to give notice of. A declarative-disclosure sense, attested both in classical and koine usage, especially in negative-declarative idiom (ouk oida = "I do not declare," "I am not the one to make this known," "I am not at liberty to say"). The Hebrew yadaʿ idiom for acknowledging (Amos 3:2, "you only have I known of all the families of the earth," meaning covenant-acknowledged; Matt 7:23, "I never knew you," = "I never acknowledged") carries the same disclosure-sense into Greek. This sense is patristically crucial for Mark 13.32: see §"Patristic / scholarly note" below.
To understand, to perceive, to grasp. Oida + a that-clause: "to know that X is the case" (1 Cor 8:1, "we know that we all have knowledge"). Cognitive-comprehension sense.
To know God, in the covenantal-settled sense. Where ginōskō tracks the progressive relational-knowing of God, oida tracks the settled covenantal-knowing of God. John 8:55, Jesus: "you have not known (egnōkate, ginōskō) Him, but I know (oida) Him"; the contrast is deliberate, the Jews' attempted-progressive-coming-to-know vs. the Son's settled-intuitive-knowing of the Father.

Theological force, settled / intuitive knowledge

The NT Greek deploys two primary "to know" verbs side-by-side: ginōskō and oida. The distinction is not mechanical (many contexts use them interchangeably) but where the difference matters, it tracks the process vs. state axis:

[[G1097 - ginosko|G1097 ginōskō]], coming-to-know through encounter, experience, or instruction; progressive; learned; relational-experiential. Inceptive.
G1492 oida, having-known as a settled state; intuitive; complete; unmediated; immediate. Resultative.

The classic paired case, John 21:17

Peter's third profession of love captures both verbs in adjacent clauses:

"Lord, You know (oidas, perfect-settled) all things; You know (ginōskeis, present-progressive) that I love You."

Peter appeals to Christ's settled-comprehensive knowledge with oida and to His experiential-perceptive discernment of Peter's heart with ginōskō. The two verbs do different work in the same sentence.

The Christological deployment

The Johannine Gospel uses oida especially for the Son's settled-intuitive knowledge of the Father:

John 7:29, "I know (oida) Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me"
John 8:55, "you have not known (ouk egnōkate) Him, but I know (oida) Him"
John 10:15, "I know (ginōskō) the Father" (here ginōskō in the mutual-knowing relational sense)
John 13:1, 3, "Jesus, knowing (eidōs, participle of oida) that His hour had come... knowing (eidōs) that the Father had given all things into His hands"

The pattern: Jesus's knowledge of the Father is oida-knowledge, settled, possessed, unmediated, the knowledge of the eternal Son. The disciples' growing knowledge is typically ginōskō-knowledge, progressive, learned, in time.

The negative-declarative sense

Where oida appears in the negative, ouk oida often carries a declarative-disavowal or non-disclosure sense rather than (or as well as) a strict cognitive absence:

Matt 25:12, the bridegroom to the foolish virgins: "Truly I say to you, I do not know you (ouk oida hymas)." This is covenant-disavowal, not "I have no information about you"; the bridegroom is repudiating relationship, not pleading ignorance.
Matt 26:72-74, Peter's denial: "I do not know the man (ouk oida ton anthrōpon)." Peter is disavowing acknowledgment, not denying having met Jesus.
John 9:25, the man born blind: "Whether He is a sinner I do not know (ouk oida); one thing I do know (oida), that, having been blind, now I see." The first ouk oida is a I-am-not-the-one-to-pronounce move; the second oida is settled testimony.
2 Cor 12:2-3, Paul on the third-heaven vision: "whether in the body or out of the body I do not know (ouk oida), God knows (oiden)." Paul disavows the disclosure-role; God holds it.

This negative-declarative usage is patristically and idiomatically load-bearing for Mark 13.32, where Jesus says of the eschatological day and hour, "no one knows (oiden), not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone." See §"Patristic / scholarly note" below for the patristic deployment.

Notable verses

Settled knowledge of God / divine self-knowledge

John 7:29, "I know Him, because I am from Him"
John 8:55, "I know Him, and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you"
John 13:1, 3, "Jesus, knowing that His hour had come... knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands"
John 17:25, "Righteous Father, although the world has not known (ouk egnō) You, yet I have known (egnōn) You; and these have known (egnōsan) that You sent Me." (note the ginōskō register here, the contrast verse)
2 Cor 12:2-3, Paul on the vision, "God knows"

Negative-declarative / disavowal

Matt 25:12, the bridegroom: "I do not know you"
Matt 26:72, Peter: "I do not know the man"
John 9:25, the blind man: "whether He is a sinner I do not know"
Matt 7:23, "I never knew you" (here ouk + ginōskō, but the same Semitic idiom of covenantal disavowal)

Christological / Mark 13:32

Mark 13:32, "of that day or that hour no one knows (oiden), not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father." Parallel Matthew 24:36 (most reliable MSS preserve "nor the Son"; some lack it).
Acts 1:7, Jesus's parallel disclaimer: "It is not for you to know (gnōnai, ginōskō) times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority." Note the verb-shift to ginōskō in Acts 1:7, the progressive-learning register, fits the disciples; the oida-register at Mark 13:32 fits the question of settled possession of the timing.

Practical knowing-how

Matt 7:11, parents "know how" to give good gifts
Phil 4:12, Paul "knows how" to be abased and to abound
1 Thess 4:4, "each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification"

Patristic / scholarly note

Mark 13:32 ("the Son does not know") is the most-deployed atheist / Arian / skeptical proof-text against Christ's omniscience. The patristic and Reformed exegetical tradition handled it with three converging moves that operate on the lexical and grammatical features of oida:

1. The two-natures answer (Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, John of Damascus, Cyril of Alexandria)

The Son is one Person in two natures. What is true of one nature can be said of the Person via communicatio idiomatum. Christ qua eternal Logos knows the day; Christ qua incarnate human nature did not have the timing disclosed to His human consciousness during the earthly mission. The "ignorance" is real of His human nature without being a defect of His divine nature.

Athanasius, Orationes contra Arianos 3.42-50, develops the move at length against the Arian deployment of Mark 13:32. Athanasius: "as Word He knew; as man He was ignorant; for it belongs to flesh to be ignorant." The Arians read the verse as proof of subordinationism; Athanasius answers that the verse names what is true of the assumed humanity, not what is true of the Logos as Logos.
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 30 (the Fourth Theological Oration on the Son), §15-16, treats Mark 13:32 explicitly. Gregory: it would be "ridiculous" to suppose the Son who knows the Father (and through whom all things were made) does not know the day. The ignorance is of the human nature; or, alternatively, it is a pedagogical-economic withholding ("the cause of ignorance is the Father's not yet having permitted disclosure"). Gregory holds both moves as compatible.
John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa 3.21-22, formalizes the two-natures grammar. The Son knows according to His divinity; the Son's humanity, considered in itself, did not have all knowledge intuitively, though it had the fullness of knowledge available through the hypostatic union. The grammar of "the Son does not know" is a statement of the Person according to one of the two natures.
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus §22, Quod unus sit Christus: the communicatio idiomatum makes it proper to say of the Person (the one Christ) what is true of one of the natures. "The Son does not know" is true of the Person Christ according to His humanity, and is not a denial of omniscience in the divine nature.

2. The declarative-idiom answer (Basil the Great, Augustine, Gregory the Great)

A second-track patristic reading exegetes oiden in the declarative-disclosure sense (semantic range §4 above): "no one makes known" rather than (or as well as) "no one has knowledge of." On this reading, Mark 13:32 says that the day's disclosure is not given by the angels, not given by the Son in His earthly teaching ministry, and is reserved to the Father (i.e., to the Father's eternal counsel from which the Son discloses in the Father's timing).

Basil the Great, Epistle 236, ad Amphilochium §1-2, addresses Mark 13:32 directly. Basil: "But the Son does not know" should be heard in the Semitic-idiomatic sense; in scriptural usage to know often signifies to make known or to give to know. Basil cites parallel idioms (the LXX rendering of "the Lord knows the way of the righteous," etc.) where yadaʿ / gnōnai / oida carries the disclosure-sense.
Augustine, De Trinitate 1.12.23, holds the same: the Son does not know to make known, i.e., does not have the disclosure-role for the timing; the Father reserves that. Augustine also affirms the two-natures answer; the moves are complementary.
Gregory the Great, Homilies on Ezekiel 1.8.31, develops the declarative move pastorally: the Son, qua head of the Church (the Body), does not yet make known the day, because the Body does not yet need to know; what is unknown to the Body is, in that sense, unknown by the Head; the disclosure-economy is structured by the Father's eternal counsel.

3. The pedagogical-economy answer (Cyril, Chrysostom, the Reformed tradition)

A third reading complements the first two: Christ's "I do not know" functions pedagogically to redirect the disciples from speculation about timing toward readiness. The parallel at Acts 1:7 ("it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority") makes the move explicit: the question is not given to you; the disposition the timing demands is watchfulness, not calculation. Christ models the disposition by speaking as though He did not know, which He does not (qua human) and is not authorized to disclose (qua incarnate Son in His earthly mission).

John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 77.1, on the parallel Matt 24:36: "He withheld the knowledge from them as a Father from his little children; not because He did not know, but because it was not expedient that they should know." The pedagogical-economic frame is explicit.
John Calvin, Commentaries on Matthew (on Matt 24:36): Calvin holds the two-natures answer firmly but adds the pedagogical economy: "Christ, as he had clothed himself with our flesh, so he clothed himself with human feelings; so that he did not, on his own account, know the day, but as it was not necessary that he should know it." The "not necessary" carries the pedagogical-economic sense.
The Westminster Confession tradition (and broader Reformed Christology) holds the two-natures answer as the load-bearing move (the unio personalis preserves omniscience in the divine nature; the human nature is genuinely finite in its created knowledge), with the declarative-idiom and the pedagogical-economy as supplementary harmonies.

4. Modern kenotic Christology (Thomasius, Gore; debated)

Nineteenth-century kenotic Christology (Gottfried Thomasius, Charles Gore) proposed a sharper move: the Son voluntarily emptied Himself (ekenōsen heauton, Phil 2:7) of certain relative divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence) in the incarnation, while retaining the essential divine attributes (holiness, love, eternity). On a kenotic reading, the Son's "I do not know" is literal: the Son genuinely set aside operative-omniscience in the economy of the incarnation.

Kenotic Christology is contested in classical theology:

Critics (Charles Hodge; Berkhof; classical Reformed dogmatics): Kenotic Christology compromises divine immutability (God cannot cease to be omniscient and still be God) and simplicity (the divine attributes are not severable). The two-natures answer accomplishes what kenotic Christology aims to accomplish, without the metaphysical cost.
Defenders (Thomasius, Gore, some 20th-c. Lutheran and Anglican theologians): Kenotic Christology captures the real limitations Jesus displays (growth in wisdom, Luke 2:52; not knowing the day, Mark 13:32; weariness, hunger, ignorance of who touched His garment, Mark 5:30) without bifurcating the Person into "what one nature knows and the other doesn't." The kenosis is temporary (the Son resumes operative-omniscience at the resurrection / ascension) and voluntary, preserving divinity at the level of identity.

The classical-Reformed mainline (and the patristic mainline) prefers the two-natures answer (1) supplemented by the declarative-idiom (2) and pedagogical-economy (3), without taking the kenotic step (4). The two-natures grammar is what the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) formalizes, and is what the hypostatic union doctrine carries. (See Hypostatic Union.)

Common colloquial sense

The patristic declarative-idiom reading is not exotic; it is how "I don't know" commonly functions in ordinary speech across cultures. A few representative cases:

The parent to children asking when they'll arrive at the destination: "I don't know." The parent often does know (approximately) but says "I don't know" to redirect the child from time-tracking toward patience.
The judge to the press asking what the verdict will be: "I don't know what the verdict will be." The judge may have studied the case extensively; "I don't know" here functions as "I am not at liberty to disclose," not as a cognitive blank.
The friend asked about a third party's secret: "I don't know." The speaker often does know; the disclosure is not theirs to make.
The steward of a household, asked by a guest about the master's plans: "The master has not made it known"; the steward speaks for the master's disclosure-economy, not for the master's intellect.
The Semitic register specifically: "knowing" in Hebrew and Aramaic frequently shades into acknowledging, declaring, publishing, avowing. Jesus's "I never knew you" (Matt 7:23) is covenant-disavowal, not memory failure. "The Lord knows the way of the righteous" (Ps 1:6) names covenantal acknowledgment, not bare cognitive grasp. "You only have I known of all the families of the earth" (Amos 3:2) is election, not exclusive-information. The same idiom runs negatively at Mark 13:32: the Son does not make known the day, in His teaching role to the disciples, during His earthly mission.

The atheist deployment of Mark 13:32 ("see, Jesus didn't even know the timing, so he's not God") presupposes that oida in the verse must be read in the strict cognitive-blank sense (range §3 / §5) without the declarative-disclosure register (§4) or the two-natures distribution that the rest of the verse demands. Both presuppositions are challengeable; the patristic and Reformed tradition has challenged them for sixteen centuries.

Verses in this codex

See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here. Anchors: Mark 13.32 (the load-bearing case), John 7.29 (the Son's oida of the Father), John 8.55, Matthew 7.21-23 (Semitic disavowal-idiom), Phil 4:12 (knowing-how), 1 Cor 8:1.