Senses
1. darkness — Darkness as absence of light, used both literally (physical darkness at the crucifixion, Mt 27:45; outer darkness, Mt 8:12) and metaphorically (spiritual/moral darkness contrasted with light, Jn 1:5; 2 Cor 6:14; 1 Jn 1:6). All 30 NT occurrences represent the same lexical meaning across inflectional cases (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive singular). Multilingual evidence is uniform: Spanish 'oscuridad/tinieblas/tiniebla' all denote darkness; Hindi 'अंधकार/अन्धकार/घोर अन्धकार' consistently mean darkness (the last intensified as 'deep darkness'); Arabic 'الظُّلمَةِ/ظُلْمَةٍ/ظلام' are morphological variants of the same root ظ-ل-م; Korean '어둠/흑암' both mean darkness; Swahili 'giza/weusi' denote darkness and blackness respectively. The three clusters are merely case-form splits of a single sense. 30×
AR["-الظُّلْمَةِ","الظُّلمَةِ","الظُّلْمَةِ","ظَلامٌ","ظُلمَةً","ظُلمَةٌ","ظُلمَةٍ","ظُلمَةُ","ظُلمَةِ","ظُلْمَةً","ظُلْمَةٌ","ظُلْمَةٍ","ظُلْمَةَ"]·ben["σκότος-অন্ধকার","অন্ধকার","অন্ধকারকে","অন্ধকারে","অন্ধকারে,","অন্ধকারে?","অন্ধকারের","অন্ধকারের,"]·DE["Finsternis"]·EN["darkness"]·FR["ténèbres"]·heb["חֹשֶׁךְ"]·HI["-चाँद","अंधकार","अंधकार,","अंधेरा","अंधेरे","अंधेरेसे","अनधेर","अन्धकार","अन्धकार-में"]·ID["kegelapan","kegelapan,"]·IT["tenebre"]·jav["pepeteng","pepeteng,","pepeteng?","peteng","peteng,"]·KO["그-","어둠","어둠-에","어둠-을","어둠-의","어둠-이","어둠에서","어둠의","어둠이","어둡","어둡이"]·PT["escuridão","escuridão,","trevas","trevas,"]·RU["-света","тьма","тьме","тьмой","тьмой,","тьму","тьму,","тьмы"]·ES["oscuridad","tinieblas"]·SW["-","giza","giza,","giza?","gizani"]·TR["karanlik","karanlik,","karanlık","karanlıkta","karanlıktan","karanlığa","karanlığı","karanlığın","karanlığın-"]·urd["اندھیرا","اندھیرے","اندھیرے-میں","اندھیرے-کی","اندھیرے-کے"]
Matt 6:23, Matt 6:23, Matt 8:12, Matt 22:13, Matt 25:30, Matt 27:45, Mark 15:33, Luke 1:79, Luke 11:35, Luke 22:53, Luke 23:44, John 3:19 (+18 more)
BDB / Lexicon Reference
σκότος, ὁ, more rarely σκότος, εος, τό (see. entry near the end), darkness, gloom, Refs 8th c.BC+; opposed to φάος, Refs 5th c.BC+; opposed to ἡμέρα, Refs 5th c.BC+ __2 in Refs 8th c.BC+ always of the darkness of death, mostly in phrase τὸν δὲ σ. ὄσσε κάλυψεν Refs; so in Trag. and Comedy texts, σκότῳ θανεῖν Refs 5th c.BC+; ἤδη με περιβάλλει σ. Refs 5th c.BC+; σκότον εἶναι τεθνηκότος (i.e.…