When we read Scripture, we often attend to weighty, striking words. We care about grace and faith. We pay attention to who is blessed and cursed. We wonder about baptism and the Kingdom of God. These words are laden with meaning and stand as stepping stones for us to understand the Gospel message. But in the Scriptures, the simple and mundane words also have their own insights to share. Although they seem stale and insipid because they are quotidian and are not the fulcra of age-old theology, these words have hidden nuances of their own which pull us into a deeper relationship with Scripture. A remarkable example of one such banal word is “I,” or in ancient Greek, egō.
Egō and other personal pronouns work differently in ancient Greek than they do in English. Greek is an inflected language, meaning Greek verbs identify their subjects by nuanced shifts in spelling. Because of this mechanic, egō is an unnecessary and superfluous word. Suppose in Greek someone said, “am hungry.” A Greek speaker, understanding that an implied egō must logically precede the “am,” would have no trouble navigating the (seemingly) missing word. In fact, because egō is redundant, it only appears where a speaker or author has placed it for a deliberate purpose, making its inclusion more noteworthy than its omission. By examining patterns of egō in Jesus’ words, we can better perceive the tone and purpose of His language, and we can more clearly understand His testimony about who He is.
Egō provides one of these wonderful services—conveying both the tone and purpose of Jesus’ words—in John 18:19-20. John records:
“The high priest then questioned Jesus about His disciples, and about His teaching. Jesus answered him, ‘I [egō] have spoken openly to the world; I [egō] always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret.’”
Since both instances of egō are grammatically unnecessary, why does Jesus include them? The first possibility is that, although the high priest is questioning Jesus about His disciples, Jesus wants to speak only for Himself. Jesus is emphasizing what He has done, not what His disciples have done. The second explanation is that Jesus is juxtaposing Himself against the high priests, as though He were saying, “I, unlike you, have no need for secrecy.” In either case, the hidden egō reveals deeper complexities in Jesus’ testimony.
The function of egō to distinguish a speaker from an audience is salient in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Six times, Jesus pairs egō with the adversative de (“but”) to contrast the old, imperfect laws against His own new and revolutionary teachings. Jesus instructs,
“‘You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘you shall not commit murder’ and ‘whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I [egō de] say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court…’” (Matthew 5:21-22)
Jesus cites the historic law, then places an egō to emphasize the shift to His own teaching. The pattern repeats five more times: Matthew 5:27-8, 31-2, 33-4, 38-9, and 43-4. The emphasis provided by egō facilitates Jesus' purpose: to provide a new teaching that fulfills the old laws.
Egō, however, beyond simply enriching the flavor of Jesus’ teachings, is a tool that Jesus wields to embolden His claims to divinity. Frequently, especially in John’s Gospel, Jesus gives “I am” statements. This phrase is commonly understood as a quotation of Exodus 3:14, where God, after Moses asks for His name, tells Moses, “I am who I am.” But why are Jesus’ words so evocative of God’s words to Moses? Surely neither we nor the Jews of Jesus’ day interpret every “I am” as a claim to divinity! We must turn to Jesus’ emphatic egō. In the Septuagint’s1 translation of Exodus 3, the “I am” in God’s statement is “I [egō] am.” And in each of Jesus’ “I am” statements, He too invokes the distinctive egō. His reference thus becomes clearer and stronger, so that in Mark 14:62, when Jesus tells the high priest, “‘I [egō] am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven,’” His claim to divinity is bold enough that the high priest, upon hearing Jesus speak, tears his garments, accuses Jesus of blasphemy, and condemns Him to die.
Beware that, because English finds it awkward to write a lonely “I am” without further elaboration, translations will often obscure, not double down on, Jesus’ intentionally-emphatic language. Consider Matthew 14, a record of Jesus’ famous walk across water. After Jesus’ disciples embark on a boat, they are stalled by winds and imperiled by buffeting waves. Then, when Jesus walks out across the water to His disciples, they fear He is a ghost. Jesus reassures them, “‘Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.’” The translation “it is I,” although commonplace,2 completely obscures Jesus’ true message. Jesus actually tells His disciples, “‘Take courage; I [egō] am; do not be afraid.’” Jesus is not just saying, “fear not because I am here,” but also, “fear not because I am the I am.”
Although an egō may seem like a minor detail, it is a detail that can transform an entire passage. When reading Scripture, remember to look beyond the keywords of high theology; even the humblest words have the power to bring you closer to Christ.
The Septuagint is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, produced around the 3rd or 2nd century B.C. For centuries it stood as the most influential translation of its type, becoming the primary body of Scriptures for Greek-speaking Jews and for the newborn Christian church. The Septuagint was by far the most frequent source of Old Testament quotations for the New Testament’s Greek authors.
A survey of common translations for this verse can be found here: https://biblehub.com/parallel/matthew/14-27.htm.