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 3:5
Born of water and of the Spirit. One preposition governs both nouns, or two.
John 3:5, in every translation this tool compares.
Made of wood and nails. One thing, two materials. Made of wood and of iron. Now it sounds like two things. English signals it by repeating the preposition and Greek does not have to.
Because whether water and Spirit are two births or one hangs on how the Greek phrase is constructed, and English cannot show that a single preposition is covering both.
Every version reads born of water and the Spirit. None marks whether one birth is meant or two.
ἐκ ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος
Ex hudatos kai pneumatos has one preposition governing both nouns joined by kai. In Greek that construction often marks a single idea rather than a pair, which is the grammatical case for reading it as one birth described two ways.
English repeats or drops the preposition and thereby decides. The Greek construction leaves it undecided and the decision gets made in the printing.
When two nouns share one preposition in Greek, check whether the writer is describing one thing or two. The construction often signals one.
Born of water and the Spirit is the majority rendering across all versions. The interpretation is argued in commentaries and no translation takes a side.
- Ezekiel 36:25-27 pairs water and spirit in one promise
- Titus 3:5 uses washing and renewing together
- The single-preposition construction discussed in standard Greek grammars
