Stilbo (G4744) describes a bright, glittering radiance — the gleaming that comes from polished metal, brilliant light, or supernatural glory. It appears only once in the NT (Mark 9:3) in the Transfiguration account: 'his clothes became radiant [stilbonta], intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.' The word's choice is deliberate — this was no ordinary whiteness but a supernatural brilliance beyond earthly production.
The stilbo of the Transfiguration (Mark 9:3) is a revelation moment: Jesus's intrinsic glory briefly breaks through His human form. This is not the whiteness of clean linen — it is the white light of divinity itself. Peter, James, and John saw what was always true but usually veiled. The theology of the Transfiguration (Matt 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36) is the theology of unveiled glory: the same Jesus who walked, slept, and ate with them was simultaneously the radiant Son of God in whom the Father delighted. And the NT promise is that this glory will be shared: believers 'will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father' (Matt 13:43) — reflecting the stilbo of the One who is the Light of the world.