StrongerBible

arrabōn

ἀρραβών

GreekG0728“guarantee, deposit, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

2Co 1:222Co 5:5Eph 1:14
Word studyResearch-gradear-rah-BONEnoun

What arrabōn means

a down payment: a first installment paid in advance that is a real part of the full amount and secures the promise that the rest will follow

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The word comes straight out of the ancient business world. When someone bought a field or a cow, or arranged a marriage, they handed over an arrabon up front. It was not a separate token or a good-faith gesture; it was the first slice of the actual price, made of the same money that would complete the sale, and it made the deal binding on both sides. The buyer who backed out forfeited it; the seller who failed to deliver had to pay it back double.

Paul takes this everyday commercial word and applies it to the Holy Spirit. All three times he uses it, he calls the Spirit God's down payment to believers. His point is not merely that God has promised something for later; it is that God has already handed over a genuine first portion of the very life he intends to give in full. The Spirit given now is the same reality as the glory to come, only in part.

This is why the word carries so much weight in Paul's picture of the future. Because the down payment is of the same kind as the whole, a believer's assurance rests not on a bare promise but on already holding a real beginning of it. In Second Corinthians the whole being paid toward is the resurrection body and the life that swallows up death; in Ephesians it is the full inheritance and final rescue of God's people.

2Co 1:222Co 5:5Eph 1:14

Disputed

How far to press the "first installment of the same kind" sense of arrabon in Paul, as against treating the broader "pledge / guarantee" category as adequate.

  • majorityThe word denotes a first installment homogeneous with the whole, so the Spirit is a real first portion of the future life rather than an external guarantee of it; this same-kind nuance is exegetically and theologically decisive.; Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2005), 205-208; Gordon D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence (Hendrickson, 1994), 806-808; Margaret E. Thrall, II Corinthians (ICC, 1994), 1:155-158
  • minorityThe older broad category "pledge / guarantee" is adequate, and pressing the homogeneity of the installment too hard overreaches the evidence.; Ernest Best, Ephesians (ICC, 1998), 152-153; Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42, 1990), 41

What scholars say about arrabōn

Lexicography identifies arrabon as a Semitic loanword, from Hebrew erabon (root ערב, "to stand surety"), carried into Greek through Phoenician commercial networks (LSJ; Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek; Behm, TDNT 1:475), and continued in Latin arra / arrabo and English "earnest." The papyrological studies of Deissmann (Bibelstudien; Licht vom Osten) and Moulton-Milligan (Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, 79) established that in Hellenistic and Roman Koine it was an ordinary commercial technical term: the earnest money that made a contract binding, a first installment of the same kind as the balance and credited toward it. Louw-Nida (57.170) and BDAG (134) note that it differs from other words for a pledge precisely in implying a payment of part of the total due; Greek had a separate word, enechyron, for a heterogeneous security, which Paul does not use. In the Septuagint arrabon occurs only at Genesis 38:17, 18, 20, where it renders erabon in the returnable-pledge sense (Judah's signet, cord, and staff). On Paul's three uses, Harris (NIGTC), Thrall (ICC), Furnish (Anchor Bible), Barnett and Fee (God's Empowering Presence) argue that "first installment / down payment" is superior to bare "guarantee" because Pauline eschatology depends on the Spirit being homogeneous with the coming redemption, a reading reinforced by the parallel with aparche tou pneumatos in Romans 8:23. On Ephesians 1:14, Barth (Anchor Bible), O'Brien (Pillar), Lincoln (WBC), Bruce (NICNT) and Hoehner read the genitive as partitive or appositional: the Spirit is a first slice of the inheritance itself. Behm and mainstream lexicography hold that Paul reflects the dominant commercial "installment" sense rather than the Genesis 38 returnable-pledge nuance, though Spicq (TLNT 1:195-199) notes that Modern Greek arrabona, "engagement ring," preserves both streams.

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 (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. ἀρραβών, 134lexicon
  • Johannes Behm, 'ἀρραβών,' TDNT 1:475lexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 57.170lexicon
  • Adolf Deissmann, Bible Studies (ET 1901), 108-109monograph
  • Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), 79lexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (1994), 1:195-199lexicon
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2005), 205-208commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, II Corinthians (ICC, 1994), 1:155-158commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence (Hendrickson, 1994), 289-295, 806-808monograph
  • Markus Barth, Ephesians (Anchor Bible 34, 1974), 96-97commentary
  • Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Pillar, 1999), 121commentary

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

All attested forms of ἀρραβών

accusative m s

ἀρραβῶνα

2Co 1:22, 2Co 5:5

nominative m s

ἀρραβὼν

Eph 1:14