Ginosko is the ordinary Greek verb for knowing, and like the Hebrew underneath it, its center of gravity is not information. It is acquaintance: the knowing that exists between two people who have actually met, shared a table, kept company. Greek has other words for knowing about things. This one leans personal, and the Brit Chadashah spends it that way at the moments that matter most. "This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Yeshua the Messiah whom You have sent," John 17:3. Eternal life is defined as acquaintance with a Person.

The verse that gives the word its edge is Matthew 7:23. Men arrive with a resume: prophecy in His name, demons cast out in His name, mighty works in His name. He does not dispute one line of it. He says "I never knew you," ouk egnon hymas, and the sentence lands because of what the word is not. Not "you never worked for me." Not "your doctrine was off." I was never acquainted with you. Standing behind the Greek is the Hebrew register of yada, the covenant knowing of Genesis 4:1 and Amos 3:2, and Matthew 7:23 only carries its full weight when that register stays visible: they were strangers inside a binding relationship that never existed.

Sha'ul (Paul) turns the word in the direction that guards it from becoming a merit badge: "if anyone loves God, he is known by Him," 1 Corinthians 8:3, and again in Galatians 4:9, "now that you know God, or rather are known by God." The direction of the verb is the point. The question Matthew 7 leaves in the room is not how much you have accumulated about Him or around Him. It is whether He would say He knows you.