John 20:29

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

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Word by word — the Greek

Word	Greek	Strong’s	Meaning
Jesus	Ἰησοῦς· Iēsous	G2424	Jesus (i.e. Jehoshua) · noun — nominative singular masculine, a proper name
saith	λέγει legei	G3004	properly · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person singular
him	αὐτῷ autō	G846	the reflexive pronoun self · personal pronoun — dative singular masculine
Thomas	Θωμᾶς Thōmâs	G2381	the twin
because	ὅτι hoti	G3754	demonstrative · conjunction
thou hast seen	ἑώρακάς he'ōrakas	G3708	by extension · verb — perfect active indicative, 2nd person singular
me	με me	G3165	me · personal pronoun — 1st person accusative singular
thou hast believed	πεπίστευκας· pepisteukas	G4100	to have faith (in · verb — perfect active indicative, 2nd person singular
blessed	μακάριοι makarioi	G3107	supremely blest · adjective — nominative plural masculine
they that	ὁ ho	G3588	the (sometimes to be supplied · article — nominative singular masculine
have	ἰδόντες idontes	G1492	used only in certain past tenses · verb — second aorist active participle, nominative plural masculine
not	μὴ mē	G3361	(adverb) not · particle — negative
seen	εἴδω eídō	G1492	used only in certain past tenses
and	καὶ kai	G2532	and · conjunction
have believed	πιστεύσαντες.¶ pisteusantes	G4100	to have faith (in · verb — aorist active participle, nominative plural masculine

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

1 Peter 1:8 Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:
2 Corinthians 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:27 By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.
Luke 1:45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
John 4:48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.
John 20:8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
Hebrews 11:39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on John 20:26–end

We have here an account of another appearance of Christ to his disciples, after his resurrection, when Thomas was now with them. And concerning this we may observe, I. When it was that Christ repeated his visit to his disciples: After eight days, that day seven-night after he rose, which must therefore be, as that was, the first day of the week. 1. He deferred his next appearance for some time, to show his disciples that he was not risen to such a life as he had formerly lived, to converse constantly with them but was as one that belonged to another world, and visited this only as angels do, now and then, when there was occasion. Where Christ was during these eight days, and the rest of the…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on John 20:29

because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed--words of measured commendation, but of indirect and doubtless painfully--felt rebuke: that is, 'Thou hast indeed believed; it is well: it is only on the evidence of thy senses, and after peremptorily refusing all evidence short of that.' blessed they that have not seen, and yet have believed--"Wonderful indeed and rich in blessing for us who have not seen Him, is this closing word of the Gospel" [ALFORD].

Adam Clarke on John 20:29

Thomas - This word is omitted by almost every MS., version, and ancient commentator of importance. Blessed are they, etc. - Thou hast seen, and therefore thou hast believed, and now thou art blessed; thou art now happy - fully convinced of my resurrection; yet no less blessed shall all those be who believe in my resurrection, without the evidence thou hast had. From this we learn that to believe in Jesus, on the testimony of his apostles, will put a man into the possession of the very same blessedness which they themselves enjoyed. And so has God constituted the whole economy of grace that a believer, at eighteen hundred years' distance from the time of the resurrection, suffers no loss beca…

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John Gill

The Church Fathers

Blessed are those who, when grace is withdrawn, find no consolation in themselves but only continuing tribulation and thick darkness, and yet they do not despair. Rather, strengthened by faith, they endure courageously, convinced that they do indeed see him who is invisible.
— John of Karpathos, TEXTS FOR THE MONKS IN INDIA 71

Well, be it so; only let the same hope flow on from them to us! For if to them who saw, and therefore believed, such fruit then accrued to the operations of the flesh and the soul, how much more to us! For more "blessed," says Christ, "are they who have not seen, and yet have believed; " since, even if the resurrection of the flesh must be denied to them, it must at any rate be a fitting boon to us, who are the more blessed.
— Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh

It is the strength of great minds and the light of firmly faithful souls unhesitatingly to believe what is not seen with the bodily sight and to focus your affections where you cannot direct your gaze. And from where should this godliness spring up in our hearts or how should someone be justified by faith, if our salvation rested on those things only that lie beneath our eyes? And so, our Lord said to Thomas, who seemed to doubt Christ's resurrection until he had tested by sight and touched the traces of his passion in his very flesh, "because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
— Leo the Great, SERMON 74.1

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

John, Gospel of — The genuineness of this Gospel, i.e., the fact that the apostle John was its author, is beyond all reasonable doubt. In recent times, from about 1820, many attempts have been made to impugn its…
Thomas — Twin, one of the twelve (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18, etc.). He was also called Didymus (John 11:16; 20:24), which is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew name. All we know regarding him is recorded in the…
Thomas · Sees Jesus after the resurrection — Sees Jesus after the resurrection

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

John 20:29

Word by word — the Greek

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on John 20:26–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on John 20:29

Adam Clarke on John 20:29

John Gill

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John 20:29

Word by word — the Greek

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on John 20:26–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on John 20:29

Adam Clarke on John 20:29

John Gill

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on John 20:24-29

Tyndale Open Study Notes on John 20:29