John 1:18

Bible in Basic English (1941)

No man has seen God at any time; the only Son, who is on the breast of the Father, he has made clear what God is.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

Θεὸν Οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς Υἱός, ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός, ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.

Transliteration

Theon Oudeis heōraken pōpote; the monogenēs Huios, the one ōn in the kolpon of the Patros, ekeinos exēgēsato.

Grammar Details

• *Theon*: accusative masculine singular - God
• *Oudeis*: nominative masculine singular - no one
• *heōraken*: perfect active indicative 3rd person singular of *horaō* - has seen
• *pōpote*: adverb - at any time/ever
• *monogenēs*: nominative masculine singular - only-begotten/unique
• *Huios*: nominative masculine singular - Son
• *ōn*: present active participle, nominative masculine singular of *eimi* - being/who is
• *kolpon*: accusative masculine singular - bosom/heart
• *Patros*: genitive masculine singular - of Father
• *ekeinos*: demonstrative pronoun, nominative masculine singular - that one/he
• *exēgēsato*: aorist middle indicative 3rd person singular of *exēgeomai* - explained/declared/revealed

Word Meanings

• *heōraken*: has seen/perceived/experienced
• *monogenēs*: only-begotten/unique/one-of-a-kind
• *kolpon*: bosom/chest/heart/intimate position
• *exēgēsato*: explained/declared/revealed/made known

Referenced Verses

• Col 1:15 : 15 Who is the image of the unseen God coming into existence before all living things;
• 1 John 4:12 : 12 No man has ever seen God: if we have love for one another, God is in us and his love is made complete in us:
• John 6:46 : 46 Not that anyone has ever seen the Father; only he who is from God, he has seen the Father.
• 1 Tim 6:16 : 16 Who only has life for ever, living in light to which no man may come near; whom no man has seen or is able to see: to whom be honour and power for ever. So be it.
• 1 John 4:9 : 9 And the love of God was made clear to us when he sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
• Matt 11:27 : 27 All things have been given to me by my Father; and no one has knowledge of the Son, but the Father; and no one has knowledge of the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.
• Luke 10:22 : 22 All things have been given to me by my Father: and no one has knowledge of the Son, but only the Father: and of the Father, but only the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.
• John 1:14 : 14 And so the Word became flesh and took a place among us for a time; and we saw his glory--such glory as is given to an only son by his father--saw it to be true and full of grace.
• 1 John 4:20 : 20 If a man says, I have love for God, and has hate for his brother, his words are false: for how is the man who has no love for his brother whom he has seen, able to have love for God whom he has not seen?
• 1 John 5:20 : 20 And we are certain that the Son of God has come, and has given us a clear vision, so that we may see him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
• Exod 33:18-23 : 18 And Moses said, O Lord, let me see your glory. 19 And he said, I will make all the light of my being come before you, and will make clear to you what I am; I will be kind to those to whom I will be kind, and have mercy on those on whom I will have mercy. 20 But it is not possible for you to see my face, for no man may see me and still go on living. 21 And the Lord said, See, there is a place near me, and you may take your place on the rock: 22 And when my glory goes by, I will put you in a hole in the rock, covering you with my hand till I have gone past: 23 Then I will take away my hand, and you will see my back: but my face is not to be seen.
• Exod 34:5-7 : 5 And the Lord came down in the cloud and took his place by the side of Moses, and Moses gave worship to the name of the Lord. 6 And the Lord went past before his eyes, saying, The Lord, the Lord, a God full of pity and grace, slow to wrath and great in mercy and faith; 7 Having mercy on thousands, overlooking evil and wrongdoing and sin; he will not let wrongdoers go free, but will send punishment on children for the sins of their fathers, and on their children's children to the third and fourth generation.
• Num 12:8 : 8 With him I will have talk mouth to mouth, openly and not in dark sayings; and with his eyes he will see the form of the Lord: why then had you no fear of saying evil against my servant Moses?
• Deut 4:12 : 12 And the voice of the Lord came to you out of the fire: the sound of his words came to your ears but you saw no form; there was nothing but a voice.
• Josh 5:13-6:2 : 13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, lifting up his eyes he saw a man in front of him, with his sword uncovered in his hand: and Joshua went up to him and said, Are you for us or against us? 14 And he said, No; but I have come as captain of the armies of the Lord. Then Joshua, falling down with his face to the earth in worship, said, What has my lord to say to his servant? 15 And the captain of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. And Joshua did so. 1 (Now Jericho was all shut up because of the children of Israel: there was no going out or coming in.) 2 And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given into your hands Jericho with its king and all its men of war.
• Gen 32:28-30 : 28 And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome. 29 Then Jacob said, What is your name? And he said, What is my name to you? Then he gave him a blessing. 30 And Jacob gave that place the name of Peniel, saying, I have seen God face to face, and still I am living.
• Gen 48:15-16 : 15 And he gave Joseph a blessing, saying, May the God to whom my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, gave worship, the God who has taken care of me all my life till this day, 16 The angel who has been my saviour from all evil, send his blessing on these children: and let my name and the name of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, be given to them; and let them become a great nation in the earth.
• Exod 3:4-6 : 4 And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5 And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. 6 And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God.
• Exod 23:21 : 21 Give attention to him and give ear to his voice; do not go against him; for your wrongdoing will not be overlooked by him, because my name is in him.
• Gen 16:13 : 13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
• Isa 6:1-3 : 1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord seated in his place, high and lifted up, and the Temple was full of the wide skirts of his robe. 2 Over him were the winged ones: every one had six wings; two for covering his face, two for covering his feed, and two for flight. 3 And one said in a loud voice to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of armies: all the earth is full of his glory.
• Isa 40:11 : 11 He will give food to his flock like a keeper of sheep; with his arm he will get it together, and will take up the lambs on his breast, gently guiding those which are with young.
• 1 Tim 1:17 : 17 Now to the King eternal, ever-living, unseen, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. So be it.
• John 14:9 : 9 Jesus said to him, Philip, have I been with you all this time, and still you have no knowledge of me? He who has seen me has seen the Father. Why do you say, Let us see the Father?
• John 12:41 : 41 (Isaiah said these words because he saw his glory. His words were about him.)
• Ezek 1:26-28 : 26 And on the top of the arch which was over their heads was the form of a king's seat, like a sapphire stone; and on the form of the seat was the form of a man seated on it on high. 27 And I saw it coloured like electrum, with the look of fire in it and round it, going up from what seemed to be the middle of his body; and going down from what seemed to be the middle of his body I saw what was like fire, and there was a bright light shining round him. 28 Like the bow in the cloud on a day of rain, so was the light shining round him. And this is what the glory of the Lord was like. And when I saw it I went down on my face, and the voice of one talking came to my ears.
• John 17:26 : 26 And I have given to them knowledge of your name, and will give it, so that the love which you have for me may be in them and I in them.
• Hos 12:3-5 : 3 The Lord has a cause against Judah, and will give punishment to Jacob for his ways; he will give him the reward of his acts. 4 In the body of his mother he took his brother by the foot, and in his strength he was fighting with God; 5 He had a fight with the angel and overcame him; he made request for grace to him with weeping; he came face to face with him in Beth-el and there his words came to him;
• Luke 16:22-23 : 22 And in time the poor man came to his end, and angels took him to Abraham's breast. And the man of wealth came to his end, and was put in the earth. 23 And in hell, being in great pain, lifting up his eyes he saw Abraham, far away, and Lazarus on his breast.
• John 13:23 : 23 There was at table one of his disciples, the one dear to Jesus, resting his head on Jesus' breast.
• John 3:16-18 : 16 For God had such love for the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever has faith in him may not come to destruction but have eternal life. 17 God did not send his Son into the world to be judge of the world; he sent him so that the world might have salvation through him. 18 The man who has faith in him does not come up to be judged; but he who has no faith in him has been judged even now, because he has no faith in the name of the only Son of God.
• John 17:6 : 6 I have given knowledge of your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world: yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your words.
• Lam 2:12 : 12 They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.
• Gen 18:33 : 33 And the Lord went on his way when his talk with Abraham was ended, and Abraham went back to his place.
• Judg 6:12-26 : 12 And the angel of the Lord came before his eyes, and said to him, The Lord is with you, O man of war. 13 Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the Lord is with us why has all this come on us? And where are all his works of power, of which our fathers have given us word, saying, Did not the Lord take us out of Egypt? But now he has given us up, handing us over to the power of Midian. 14 And the Lord, turning to him, said, Go in the strength you have and be Israel's saviour from Midian: have I not sent you? 15 And he said to him, O Lord, how may I be the saviour of Israel? See, my family is the poorest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. 16 Then the Lord said to him, Truly, I will be with you, and you will overcome the Midianites as if they were one man. 17 So he said to him, If now I have grace in your eyes, then give me a sign that it is you who are talking to me. 18 Do not go away till I come with my offering and put it before you. And he said, I will not go away before you come back. 19 Then Gideon went in and made ready a young goat, and with an ephah of meal he made unleavened cakes: he put the meat in a basket and the soup in which it had been cooked he put in a pot, and he took it out to him under the oak-tree and gave it to him there. 20 And the angel of God said to him, Take the meat and the unleavened cakes and put them down on the rock over there, draining out the soup over them. And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the stick which was in his hand, touching the meat and the cakes with the end of it; and a flame came up out of the rock, burning up the meat and the cakes: and the angel of the Lord was seen no longer. 22 Then Gideon was certain that he was the angel of the Lord; and Gideon said, I am in fear, O Lord God! for I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face. 23 But the Lord said to him, Peace be with you; have no fear: you are in no danger of death. 24 Then Gideon made an altar there to the Lord, and gave it the name Yahweh-shalom; to this day it is in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. 25 The same night the Lord said to him, Take ten men of your servants and an ox seven years old, and after pulling down the altar of Baal which is your father's, and cutting down the holy tree by its side, 26 Make an altar to the Lord your God on the top of this rock, in the ordered way and take the ox and make a burned offering with the wood of the holy tree which has been cut down.
• Judg 13:20-23 : 20 And when the flame went up to heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar, while Manoah and his wife were looking on; and they went down on their faces to the earth. 21 But the angel of the Lord was seen no more by Manoah and his wife. Then it was clear to Manoah that he was the angel of the Lord. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, Death will certainly be our fate, for it is a god whom we have seen. 23 But his wife said to him, If the Lord was purposing our death, he would not have taken our burned offering and our meal offering, or have given us such orders about the child.
• Prov 8:30 : 30 Then I was by his side, as a master workman: and I was his delight from day to day, playing before him at all times;