StrongerBible

ahima

αἷμα

GreekG0129blood, bloodshed, ...

Appears 100 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 16:17Mat 23:30Mat 23:35 (3×)Mat 26:28Mat 27:4Mat 27:6Mat 27:8Mat 27:24Mat 27:25Mat 27:49Mrk 5:25Mrk 5:29Mrk 14:24Luk 8:43Luk 8:44Luk 11:50Luk 11:51 (2×)Luk 13:1Luk 22:20Luk 22:44Jhn 1:13Jhn 6:53Jhn 6:54Jhn 6:55Jhn 6:56Jhn 19:34Act 1:19Act 2:19Act 2:20Act 5:28Act 18:6Act 21:25Act 22:20Rom 3:15Rom 3:25Rom 5:91Co 11:251Co 15:50Gal 1:16Eph 2:13Eph 6:12Heb 9:13Heb 9:14Heb 9:19Heb 9:20Heb 9:21Heb 9:22Heb 9:25Heb 10:19Heb 12:24
Names & words formed with this
Word studyHY-mahnoun

What ahima means

blood: the life-fluid of a body, and by extension a life violently taken or a death that brings cleansing

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Across the New Testament one word, blood, carries a range that runs from the plainly physical to the deeply theological, and the senses are linked by a single idea inherited from the Old Testament: blood is where life is. Because the life of a creature is bound up in its blood, to shed blood is to take a life, and to offer blood is to offer a life in another's place.

So the literal fluid (a wound, a hemorrhage, water turned to blood) sits alongside blood as a way of naming violent death and the guilt that clings to those who cause it. From the same root grows the most weighted use of all: the blood of sacrifice, and above all the blood of Jesus, the poured-out life that the New Testament says cleanses, ransoms, and seals a new covenant.

A fourth use is idiomatic. Paired with flesh, blood stands for ordinary human nature in its frailty, as opposed to God or to spiritual powers. Here blood is not a substance at all but a shorthand for what it is to be merely human.

The reader should hold these together rather than collapse them. When the New Testament speaks of the blood of Christ it is not describing a liquid; it is naming a death, understood as a life laid down.

Nuances

1athe physical red fluid of a living body, as in bleeding, a wound, or water turned to blood
Mrk 5:25Mrk 5:29Luk 8:43Luk 8:44Luk 22:44Jhn 19:34Act 2:19Act 2:20Rev 6:12Rev 8:7Rev 8:8Rev 11:6
1bblood as a life violently taken, and the guilt that falls on those who shed it
Mat 23:30Mat 23:35 (3×)Mat 27:4Mat 27:6Mat 27:8Mat 27:24Mat 27:25Luk 11:50Luk 11:51 (2×)Luk 13:1Act 1:19Act 5:28
1csacrificial blood, above all the blood of Jesus, understood as a life poured out to cleanse, ransom, and seal a covenant
Mat 26:28Mrk 14:24Luk 22:20Jhn 6:53Jhn 6:54Jhn 6:55Jhn 6:56Act 20:28Rom 3:25Rom 5:91Co 10:161Co 11:25
1dblood paired with flesh as an idiom for ordinary human nature in its weakness, as opposed to God or to spiritual powers
Mat 16:17Jhn 1:13Act 17:261Co 15:50Gal 1:16Eph 6:12Heb 2:14

What scholars say about ahima

Standard New Testament lexica and theological dictionaries treat αἷμα as a single word whose range is organized by the Old Testament principle that life resides in the blood. BDAG distinguishes the literal fluid, blood as the seat or carrier of life, blood shed in violence (with the attendant guilt), and the sacrificial and cultic use that dominates the Epistles and Revelation. The flesh and blood pairing is recognized as a fixed idiom for human nature. The intense debate in twentieth-century scholarship over whether the blood of Christ stresses life released or death suffered (Vincent Taylor and others arguing for life, Leon Morris and others for violent death) is now generally resolved in favor of death, the life laid down, against any notion of a freed life-essence.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. αἷμαlexicon
  • J. Behm, "αἷμα," in TDNT 1:172-177theological-dictionary
  • EDNT, s.v. αἷμαtheological-dictionary
  • Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Eerdmans, 1965)monograph

All attested forms of αἷμα

genitive n s

αἵματος, αἵματός

Mat 23:35, Mat 23:35, Mat 27:8, Mat 27:24, Mrk 5:25, Mrk 5:29, Luk 8:43, Luk 8:44

nominative n s

αἷμα, αἷμά

Mat 16:17, Mat 23:35, Mat 27:25, Mat 27:49, Luk 11:50, Jhn 19:34, Act 18:6, Act 22:20

accusative n s

αἷμα

Mat 27:4, Luk 13:1, Jhn 6:53, Jhn 6:54, Jhn 6:56, Act 2:19, Act 2:20, Act 5:28

dative n s

αἵματι, αἵματί

Mat 23:30, Rom 3:25, Rom 5:9, 1Co 11:25, Gal 1:16, Eph 2:13, Heb 9:21, Heb 9:22

genitive n p

αἱμάτων

Jhn 1:13