1. say, declare — The fundamental sense of φημί: to speak, say, or declare, functioning as a speech-introducing verb across all persons, tenses, and numbers in the NT. The four auto-clustered senses are split purely by morphological form -- imperfect 3rd singular ἔφη ('said,' narrative past), present 3rd singular φησίν ('says,' historical present or direct speech frame), present 1st singular φημί ('I say,' authorial assertion), and present 3rd plural φασίν ('they say'). The multilingual glosses are uniform throughout: Arabic قَالَ/يَقُول (said/says), German spricht/sprechen (speaks), Hebrew אָמַר/אוֹמֵר (said/says), Hindi कहा/कहता–है (said/says), Korean 말했다/말한다 (said/says), Spanish dijo/dice/digo (said/says). There is no semantic difference between these clusters; they represent inflectional variants of a single lexical meaning. Used throughout the Gospels and Acts as a narrative speech-tag (Matt 4:7, 8:8, 13:28-29; Mark 9:12, 14:29; Luke 7:40, 22:58; John 1:23, 18:29; Acts 8:36 and many more), and by Paul for emphatic assertions (1 Cor 7:29, 10:15, 10:19, 15:50; Rom 3:8). 66×
AR["قائِلًا","قالَ","قَالَ"]·ben["তিনি-বললেন","বলল","বললেন"]·DE["sprechen","spricht"]·EN["he-said","said"]·FR["dire"]·heb["אָמַר"]·HI["कह","कहा","बोला"]·ID["Berkata","Dia-berkata","Ia-berkata","berkata","dia-berkata","ia-berkata"]·IT["dire"]·jav["Ngendika","matur","ngandika","ngendika","ngendika,"]·KO["말씀하셨다","말하였다","말했다"]·PT["Disse","disse"]·RU["Сказал","сказал"]·ES["dijo"]·SW["Akasema","akamwambia","akawaambia","alimwambia","alisema","alisema,","aliwaambia","pia","yeye"]·TR["dedi","dedi,"]·urd["بولا","کہا","یہ"]
Matt 4:7, Matt 8:8, Matt 13:28, Matt 13:29, Matt 14:8, Matt 17:26, Matt 19:21, Matt 21:27, Matt 22:37, Matt 25:21, Matt 25:23, Matt 26:34 (+38 more)
Senses
BDB / Lexicon Reference
φημί, φῄς, φηις Refs 5th c.BC+, cf. Hdn.Gr.2.147, 419; φησί (apocopation φή Refs 6th c.BC+; plural φᾰμέν, φᾰτέ, φᾱσ; Doric dialect φᾱμί, φᾱσί or φᾱτί Refs 5th c.BC+, 3rd.pers. plural φαντ; Aeolic dialect φᾶμι Refs 7th c.BC+, 2nd pers. singular φαῖσθα Refs 7th c.BC+, 3rd.pers. plural φαῖσι Refs 7th c.BC+aorist 2 ἔφην, Epic dialect φῆν Refs 8th c.BC+, Epic dialect φῆσθα Refs 8th c.BC+; ἔφη, Epic…