StrongerBible

harpagē

ἁρπαγή

GreekG0724“extortion, greed, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 23:25Luk 11:39Heb 10:34
Word studyResearch-gradehar-pah-GAYnoun

What harpagē means

forcible taking: the act of robbing, the goods that are seized, or the grasping greed that reaches out to grab what belongs to someone else

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

Across the Greek Bible and the world around it, this word keeps one steady core: taking by force. What moves from verse to verse is only the angle of view:

  • the act of seizing, the robbing itself
  • the loot, the goods that have been carried off
  • the rapacious streak, the greedy drive that reaches out to grab

All three sit on one short line, and the surrounding sentence tells you which end to weight.

The three New Testament uses land at three different points on that line. In the letter to the Hebrews, believers watched their property confiscated and welcomed it with joy (Hebrews 10:34); there the word is the plain act of seizure. In Jesus' rebuke of the religious leaders, the cup is described as full of what has been grabbed from others (Matthew 23:25), or full of the grasping greed inside the person (Luke 11:39). Matthew and Luke tilt the same saying differently: Matthew toward the plundered contents, Luke toward the rapacious heart.

Behind all of this stands the Hebrew word for seizing a neighbor's goods (גְּזֵלָה), which the Greek Old Testament regularly rendered with this term. The prophets used it to accuse the powerful who stripped the poor and then carried their tainted gains to the altar. That older charge still echoes under the New Testament uses: a cup "full of robbery" is not a vague failing but the very category of goods Isaiah said filled the houses of the oppressors.

Nuances

1athe act of seizing by force: robbery, the plundering or confiscation of what belongs to another
TranslatabilityApproximate
Heb 10:34
1bthe loot itself: the goods that have been taken by force, plunder in hand
TranslatabilityApproximate
Mat 23:25
Mat 23:25

Whether Matthew 23:25 names the concrete plundered goods that fill the cup or the abstract disposition of greed.

  • majorityThe wording that the cup is full "out of" robbery points to physical contents whose source is plunder: the vessel holds food and drink gained by seizing from others, echoing the prophets' charge that the elite's houses were full of the plunder of the poor.; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC), vol. 3 (1997), 297-298; U. Luz, Matthew 21-28 (Hermeneia, 2005), 145-147; D. A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (WBC 33B, 1995), 671-672; C. S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (1999), 552-553
  • minorityThe phrase is better heard as inward greed and self-indulgence, in line with Luke's version, so the word names the rapacious disposition rather than concrete loot.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT, 2007), 878-879
1crapacity: the grasping greed that reaches out to seize what is not one's own
Luk 11:39

What scholars say about harpagē

ἁρπαγή is a feminine action-noun on the stem ἁρπαγ- (verb ἁρπάζω, agent noun ἅρπαξ), and every major lexicon fixes its core as forcible taking, splitting only over emphasis. BDAG (3rd ed., 133) gives the act ("robbery, plunder," with Heb 10:34 as the paradigm of forcible confiscation in persecution) and the product ("what has been stolen"), placing Matt 23:25 and Luke 11:39 there. LSJ offers a three-way split: seizure/robbery, the thing seized, and rapacity as a trait (sense III, from Xenophon, Cyropaedia 5.2.17, where LSJ files Luke 11:39). Foerster (TDNT 1:472-474) treats the word alongside ἁρπάζω and ἁρπαγμός and notes its Hellenistic-Jewish ethical pairing with πλεονεξία; Louw-Nida assign the Gospel uses to greed (25.24) and Heb 10:34 to forcible robbing (57.235); Spicq (TLNT 1:217-224) stresses that the whole group names violent taking in contrast to stealthy κλοπή. Muraoka's Septuagint lexicon makes the decisive point for a first-century Jewish ear: in the Greek Old Testament ἁρπαγή becomes the standing rendering of Hebrew גזל (Isa 3:14, the plunder of the poor in the elders' houses; Ezek 18 and 22:29; Isa 61:8 and Mal 1:13, where such gain even defiles the altar). Moulton-Milligan document the word as ordinary legal vocabulary in the papyri (BGU III 871.5 pairs βία with ἁρπαγή; P.Oxy. VIII 1121), essentially the Greek equivalent of Latin rapina. On the three New Testament texts commentators converge: Hebrews 10:34, with the objective genitive "of your possessions," can only mean the concrete act of seizure (Attridge, Ellingworth, Lane, Koester, Bruce, Cockerill); Matthew 23:25, with the preposition ἐκ, is most read as the plundered contents of the cup (Davies-Allison, Luz, Hagner, Keener), though France leans toward abstract greed; Luke 11:39, having moved the referent to the person, weights the inward disposition of rapacity (Fitzmyer, Nolland, Marshall, Bovon, Bock). A separate four-century debate over the cognate ἁρπαγμός in Philippians 2:6 (Lightfoot, Hoover, N. T. Wright, Moule) turns on a different noun and a fixed idiom, and does not unsettle the meaning of ἁρπαγή itself.

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

  • F. W. Danker et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG), 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. ἁρπαγή, 133lexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones (LSJ), A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἁρπαγήlexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Peeters, 2009), s.v. ἁρπαγήlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (1988), 25.24; 57.235lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), s.v. ἁρπαγήlexicon
  • W. Foerster, "ἁρπάζω κτλ.," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:472-474theological-dictionary
  • C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (TLNT), vol. 1 (1994), 217-224theological-dictionary
  • H. W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia, 1989), 296-298commentary
  • W. L. Lane, Hebrews 9-13 (WBC 47B, 1991), 288-301commentary
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC), vol. 3 (1997), 297-298commentary
  • J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (AB 28A, 1985), 947-948commentary

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

All attested forms of ἁρπαγή

genitive f s

ἁρπαγῆς

Mat 23:25, Luk 11:39

accusative f s

ἁρπαγὴν

Heb 10:34