Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 16:8
Reprove the world of sin. One verb, three objects, and no agreed rendering.
John 16:8, in every translation this tool compares.
He showed them up. He talked them round. Two different operations, and English keeps them apart.
Because the verb can mean convict, convince, expose or reprove, and which one is chosen decides whether the Spirit is persuading the world or prosecuting it.
The King James reads reprove. Modern versions read convict, prove the world to be in the wrong, or convince.
ἐλέγχω elencho · G1651
Elencho covers exposing a fault, convicting in a legal sense, and convincing someone of the truth. All three senses are attested and the verse gives no decisive context, which is why the versions scatter.
English has separate words for each sense and no word that covers all three, so the translator must choose.
When four versions give four different verbs, the Greek word covers all four and none of them is wrong.
Convict is the modern reading; reprove is the King James; prove the world to be in the wrong is the NIV's expansion.
- elencho at Matthew 18:15; Ephesians 5:11; 1 Timothy 5:20
- The three senses set out in BDAG
- The three objects at John 16:9-11
