a thing to be grasped: something one seizes, clings to, or exploits for one's own advantage
This word appears only once in the whole New Testament, in Philippians 2:6, and it is often called one of the hardest words in the Bible to translate. It is a rare noun built from the common verb "to seize or snatch" (ἁρπάζω), so at its root it has to do with grasping. But because the noun itself is almost never used anywhere else in Greek, its exact force in this one verse has been argued over for centuries.
The argument runs along two lines: whether the word names the ACT of seizing (robbery) or the THING seized (a prize), and, if a prize, whether Christ already held it or was reaching for something not yet his. Most scholars today read the whole phrase as a set expression. To treat something as "harpagmos" is to treat an advantage you already possess as an opportunity to exploit for your own benefit. On that reading Paul is saying that Christ, though he shared God's very nature, did not use his equality with God as a means of self-advantage, but instead emptied himself and took the place of a servant.
This reading carries real weight because the set expression assumes the advantage is already in hand: you cannot decline to exploit what you do not have. So it anchors the passage's claim that Christ genuinely possessed equality with God before he humbled himself. Older interpreters took the word as a prize "grasped" and clung to, or as "robbery," and a minority of scholars still argue that Christ refused to snatch at a status he did not yet hold. The word is closely related to the plainer noun for plunder or the act of robbing (ἁρπαγή).
How to construe ἁρπαγμός in Philippians 2:6: whether it names the act of seizing (raptus, "robbery"), a prize Christ already possessed and did not cling to (res rapta), a status he did not yet have and refused to snatch at (res rapienda), or, on the now-dominant reading, an advantage already at his disposal that he declined to exploit for his own benefit.
- majorityA fixed idiom (verb of regarding plus predicate ἁρπαγμός) meaning an advantage already possessed that one declines to exploit for personal gain; since the idiom presupposes possession, Christ genuinely held equality with God but did not use it to his own advantage.; Roy W. Hoover, "The Harpagmos Enigma: A Philological Solution," Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971): 95-119; N. T. Wright, "ἁρπαγμός and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5-11," Journal of Theological Studies 37 (1986): 321-352; The Climax of the Covenant (T&T Clark, 1991), 56-98; Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1991), 211-216; Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (Eerdmans, 1995), 202-211; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Eerdmans, 2008)
- minorityThe word names a prize or possession Christ already had by nature and refused to cling to or flaunt (res rapta).; J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (Macmillan, 1868), 111, 133-137; Marvin R. Vincent, Philippians and Philemon, ICC (T&T Clark, 1897), 57-59
- minorityThe word names something Christ did not yet possess and refused to snatch at (res rapienda), often read against Adam grasping at being like God in Genesis 3; on one form of this view the passage need not assume Christ's pre-existence.; James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (Eerdmans, 1989), 114-121; Charles A. Wanamaker, "Philippians 2:6-11: Son of God or Adamic Christology?" New Testament Studies 33 (1987): 179-193; Samuel Vollenweider, "Der 'Raub' der Gottgleichheit," New Testament Studies 45 (1999): 413-433; Denny Burk, Articular Infinitives in the Greek of the New Testament (Sheffield Phoenix, 2006), 137-142
- minorityThe active sense "robbery" (raptus): Christ did not regard equality with God as a thing wrongfully seized. This is the Old Latin and Vulgate rendering (non rapinam arbitratus est) behind the King James "thought it not robbery," now largely abandoned because it makes the verse a defensive claim about status rather than the first step of Christ's humbling.; Vulgate, Philippians 2:6 (non rapinam arbitratus est); cf. survey in Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi, SNTSMS 4 (Cambridge University Press, 1967), 134-142