StrongerBible

anēkō

ἀνήκω

GreekG0433“fitting, proper, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Eph 5:4Col 3:18Phm 1:8
Compound of
anaἀνάeach13G303
hēkōἥκωto come/be present26G2240
Word studyResearch-gradeah-NAY-kohverb

What anēkō means

it is fitting: what is proper, becoming, or one's plain duty to do

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In the New Testament this word is used impersonally to say that something "is fitting" or "proper." It names what belongs to a situation, what a person owes, or what one ought to do. It began as a concrete word for physically reaching or coming up to a level, then grew to mean "to belong to" or "to be due to" someone, and by Paul's day it had become an ordinary way of saying "it is proper."

Paul uses it three times, always to mark a standard of conduct. Coarse and shameful talk is "not fitting" for God's people (Ephesians 5:4); a wife's devotion to her husband is "fitting in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18); and Paul says he could simply command Philemon to do "what is fitting," his plain duty, but chooses to appeal to love instead (Philemon 1:8).

The language of "what is fitting" was ordinary moral vocabulary in the Greek-speaking world, close to the philosophers' standard term for proper action (καθῆκον). Paul's contribution is not the word but its new anchor: he takes this shared cultural language and grounds it "in the Lord," so that what is proper is measured by Christ rather than by custom or reason alone.

Eph 5:4Col 3:18Phm 1:8

What scholars say about anēkō

In the New Testament ἀνήκω is an impersonal verb of propriety meaning "it is fitting, proper, or one's duty," the classification of BDAG (3rd ed., 78-79), Louw and Nida (Domain 66), EDNT (1:99), and TDNT (2:926-928, under ἥκω). This ethical sense is a Hellenistic development of an older concrete meaning ("to have come up to, reach, pertain to"); the intermediate "belong to, be due to" sense is abundantly attested in Ptolemaic papyri and civic inscriptions well before Paul, as Moulton and Milligan document (Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, 43), and it appears in the freely composed Septuagint books (1 Maccabees 10:42; 11:35; 2 Maccabees 14:8). All three Pauline uses fall under the single impersonal sense. Two grammatical points and one thematic point recur in the commentaries. First, the past-tense form ἀνῆκεν in Ephesians 5:4 and Colossians 3:18 is the idiomatic imperfect of propriety (BDF 358; Robertson, Grammar, 919; Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 549-551), expressing a standing norm rather than past time; Lightfoot's older suggestion of a "reproach" nuance is now generally rejected. Second, in Colossians 3:18 a clear majority (O'Brien, Dunn, Moo, Harris, Bruce) take the qualifier ἐν κυρίῳ ("in the Lord") with ἀνῆκεν rather than with the verb "submit," on the strength of the exactly parallel construction in 3:20. Third, because τὸ ἀνῆκον is a functional synonym of the Stoic τὸ καθῆκον, several commentators (Moule, Lohse, Dunn, Fitzmyer) hear a Stoic ring, though Moo cautions that a single verb is too slender a basis for deriving the household code from Stoicism; the consensus is that Paul adopts ordinary Greco-Roman propriety vocabulary and relocates its ground "in the Lord" (Colossians 3:18) or "in Christ" (Philemon 8).

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., s.v. ἀνήκω, 78-79lexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell, Scott, Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. ἀνήκωlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀνήκω, 43lexicon
  • EDNT (Balz and Schneider, eds.), Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, 1:99dictionary
  • J. Schneider, TDNT, s.v. ἥκω, ἀνήκω, 2:926-928dictionary
  • D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 549-551grammar
  • BDF (Blass, Debrunner, Funk), A Greek Grammar of the New Testament, section 358grammar
  • Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, PNTC, 299-304, 391-393commentary
  • James D. G. Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, NIGTC, 246-248, 323-324commentary
  • Peter T. O'Brien, Colossians, Philemon, WBC 44, 220-223, 288-290commentary
  • Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42, 321-324commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ἀνήκω

imperfect active indicative 3s

ἀνῆκεν

Eph 5:4, Col 3:18

present active participle accusative n s

ἀνῆκον

Phm 1:8