to draw a line that marks someone or something off from the rest, either to shut them out or to designate them for a purpose
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The picture behind this word is a boundary line. It is built from the ordinary verb for fixing a limit (ὁρίζω) with a prefix meaning "away from", so the whole word means to fence something off from everything around it. In everyday Greek documents it is the plain term for marking off a plot of land.
Because a boundary always has two sides, the same act looks very different depending on which side you are standing on. The New Testament uses this one verb for all of these:
angels sorting the wicked out from the righteous at the end of the age
a shepherd dividing the sheep from the goats
a hostile crowd cutting believers off from its common life
Peter pulling back from Gentile tables because he is afraid
the Spirit designating Barnabas and Saul for a mission
The last of those is the weightiest. When Paul says God set him apart from his mother's womb, or calls himself set apart for the good news, he is describing a line drawn around him before he had any say in it. The word does not by itself claim that the person inside the line is holy; that is the job of a different word (ἁγιάζω). It says only that a line was drawn, and the sentence around it has to supply who drew it and why.
What every use shares is that the separating is deliberate and it changes standing. Nothing here simply drifts apart. Someone marks the line, and afterwards the two sides are not treated alike.
Nuances
1ato sort a mixed group in two, putting each side where it belongs
TranslatabilityDirect
Mat 13:49Mat 25:32 (2×)
1bto cut a person off from a community: to shun or expel
Luk 6:22*
1cto pull away from a group and keep a distance from it
Act 19:92Co 6:17Gal 2:12
1dto mark someone off for God's service: to designate for a task
the same verb can mark someone out for honor rather than shutting them outGal 1:15
Both
both describe cutting a person off from the shared life of a communityLuk 6:22
Only exclude
The English verb suggests only being kept out of something, with no hint of a line drawn around the person who is left outside.
“sever”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How aphorizō differs from similar Greek words
χωρίζωparts two things that were joined, as a couple in a divorce or a traveler leaving a place, without the idea of a boundary that gives each side a different standing
Sets a person apart FOR a purpose, not just away from something. God marks out a worker and claims him for a task, so the separating is a commissioning.Act 13:2Rom 1:1Gal 1:15
Names the final sorting of people into two groups by a judge, the wicked pulled out from the righteous and the sheep set on one side from the goats on the other.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
Covers a community shutting a person out, the hostile act of shunning someone and cutting him off from the group's life.Luk 6:22Act 19:9
Both
Both put a real boundary between parties who had been together, leaving one side clean of the other: God's people told to come out and stand apart, and a high priest who is set apart from sinners.2Co 6:17Heb 7:26
Both can be used of someone who pulls away by his own choice, breaking off contact he once kept: Peter drawing back from eating with Gentile believers, and an unbelieving husband or wife who walks out of the marriage.Gal 2:121Co 7:15
Is the ordinary word for ending a marriage, so it carries the weight of divorce in a way the other word never does.Mat 19:6Mrk 10:91Co 7:101Co 7:11
Can mean nothing more than leaving one place for another, a plain physical departure with no verdict on the person attached.Act 1:4Act 18:1Act 18:2Phm 1:15
Describes being cut off from a bond of love, the severing of a relationship rather than the marking off of a group.Rom 8:35Rom 8:39
ὁρίζωfixes a limit or appoints someone to a role, but does not carry the added sense of marking that person off away from a larger group
Sorts a mixed crowd into two groups, pulling one set of people out from among another at the final judgment.Mat 25:32Mat 13:49
Describes shunning: a community shutting people out, or a person quietly pulling back from the company he had been keeping.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
Carries the sense of moving away from a group, so it is the word for leaving one body of people in order to belong somewhere else.Act 19:92Co 6:17
Both
Both are used of God marking out a particular person for a particular office or task, so English can render either one "appointed" or "set apart".Act 13:2Rom 1:1Act 10:42Rom 1:4
Both picture a boundary being drawn: one word draws the line to keep people apart, the other draws it to fix a limit that stands.Gal 1:15Act 17:26
Splits a mixed group in two at the final judgment, sorting the wicked out from the righteous and the sheep from the goats.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
Can be a hostile act done to someone: being shut out and cut off from a community for belonging to Jesus.Luk 6:22
Describes pulling away from a group you were part of, whether a deliberate withdrawal or a retreat from company that has become awkward.Act 19:9Gal 2:12
Is used as a command about what believers must keep clear of, so the emphasis falls on what is left behind rather than on who is picked.2Co 6:17
Both
Both describe God marking a person out in advance for his own service, before that person had done anything to earn it.Gal 1:15Rom 1:1Eph 1:4Act 13:17
Both are used for commissioning specific people to a task, whether the Spirit designating Barnabas and Saul or Jesus naming the Twelve.Act 13:2Luk 6:13
Both assume a wider group in view, since a person is always set apart from others or picked out from among others.Act 13:2Jhn 6:70
Names a preference between real alternatives: taking one option over the others that were available.Luk 10:42Luk 14:7
Covers ordinary decisions made by a group of people, such as a congregation settling on which men to appoint or send.Act 6:5Act 15:22Act 15:25
Carries a note of favor toward the one picked, so it can be contrasted with the world's hatred and paired with love and initiative.Jhn 15:16Jhn 15:19
Highlights that God's picks overturn human expectation, landing on the foolish, the weak, and the poor rather than the impressive.1Co 1:271Co 1:28Jas 2:5
Can settle on a single person as the one designated, which is why it stands behind the title "the Chosen One".Luk 9:35
ἁγιάζωdeclares a person or thing holy and fit for God's use, naming the resulting status rather than the act of marking off
Describes a plain act of sorting one group away from another, with nothing about holiness in view.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
Can be hostile or shameful: shutting someone out of the community, or pulling back from people you had been eating with.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
Can be simple physical relocation, moving a group of people out of one place and into another.Act 19:9
Both
Both describe a person being marked off by God for his own service, no longer available for ordinary use.Jhn 10:362Ti 2:21Act 13:2Rom 1:1Gal 1:15
Both can draw the line between God's people and what would defile them, one by cleansing them and the other by calling them out from it.Heb 9:132Co 6:17
Names what God does to make a person or thing holy, giving it a standing it did not have before, usually through washing, blood, or the Spirit at work.1Co 6:11Eph 5:26Heb 10:10
Runs the other direction too: to treat something as holy, to honor God or Christ as set apart rather than to set anything apart oneself.Mat 6:91Pe 3:15
A holy place or object can itself be the one doing the sanctifying, so that its holiness passes to whatever is laid on it.Mat 23:17Mat 23:19
aphorizō in the other biblical languages
בָּדַלHebrew“to separate”the Hebrew verb for dividing one thing from another, used of God dividing light from darkness and of priests dividing clean from unclean; the Greek Old Testament regularly renders it with this verb
can name the final sorting of people at the end of history, a line that settles for good where each person belongs: angels come out at the close of the age and take the wicked out from among the righteous (Matthew 13:49), and the Son of Man divides the assembled nations the way a shepherd puts sheep on one side and goats on the other (Matthew 25:32). Every line the Hebrew word draws is drawn inside ongoing life, with both sides still living on afterwards.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
can be the wrong people drawing the wrong line, and the text says so: a hostile crowd shuts the disciples out for Jesus' sake, which Jesus calls a blessing rather than a verdict (Luke 6:22), and Peter quietly pulls back from eating with Gentile believers once other men arrive, which Paul confronts as a failure (Galatians 2:12). Where a person or community does the separating with the Hebrew word, the text presents the act as the right thing to have done.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
can claim one named individual for a calling that belongs to him alone, reaching back before he was born: Paul says God set him apart from his mother's womb (Galatians 1:15) and opens a letter describing himself as "set apart" for the good news he preaches (Romans 1:1), and the church at Antioch is told to release two named men for the work (Acts 13:2). When the Hebrew word sets people apart for service it falls on a whole tribe or company at once, never on one person singled out from birth.Gal 1:15Rom 1:1Act 13:2
Both
both are the standard word for God taking a people or a person out of the surrounding nations and claiming them as his own, and English Bibles reach for the same wording, "set apart", in each place. The LORD tells Israel he has separated them from the peoples so that they should be his (Leviticus 20:24,Leviticus 20:26); Paul says God set him apart from his mother's womb (Galatians 1:15). The Greek word is in fact what the Greek Old Testament reaches for to carry the Hebrew one in these very verses.Lev 20:24Lev 20:26Gal 1:15
both describe people deliberately pulling out of company that would compromise their loyalty to God, as a command they are expected to obey. Ezra tells the assembly to separate themselves from the peoples of the land (Ezra 10:11) and the returned exiles do it publicly at their day of confession (Nehemiah 9:2); Paul quotes the call to come out from among them and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17).Ezr 10:11Neh 9:22Co 6:17
both can take people out of the wider group in order to hand them a job, so the separating is for something and not merely away from something. The Levites are taken out from among the Israelites to belong to God and serve at the tent (Numbers 8:14,Numbers 16:9); the church at Antioch is told to set two men apart for the work they are called to (Acts 13:2).Num 8:14Num 16:9Act 13:2
both can also describe a person or group being physically taken out of a company they had been part of, with the move itself the point. Amaziah sends home the troops he had hired from Israel (2 Chronicles 25:10); Paul takes the disciples out of the synagogue into a lecture hall when the arguing turns abusive (Acts 19:9).2Ch 25:10Act 19:9
divides things and not only people, which is where it first appears: light parted from darkness and the waters above set off from the waters below (Genesis 1:4,Genesis 1:6), the lights in the sky marking day off from night (Genesis 1:14), and the curtain that walls the holiest room off from the rest of the tent (Exodus 26:33). It even covers cutting a body apart at a joint, in the rule that the priest tears a bird open at its wings without severing it (Leviticus 1:17). The Greek word is only ever used of people.Gen 1:4Gen 1:6Gen 1:14Exo 26:33Lev 1:17
is the working word for sorting into categories and then treating each one accordingly: the priests are to tell the holy from the ordinary and the unclean from the clean (Leviticus 10:10), the food laws close by telling the animals that may be eaten from those that may not (Leviticus 11:47), and Ezekiel charges the priests with refusing to make that distinction at all (Ezekiel 22:26). The Greek word never sorts kinds of things this way.Lev 10:10Lev 11:47Ezk 22:26
marks off places on a map: Moses sets aside three towns east of the Jordan as refuges for anyone who kills by accident (Deuteronomy 4:41,Deuteronomy 19:2), and Ezekiel's wall runs around the temple area to keep the holy ground off from ordinary ground (Ezekiel 42:20). Nothing in the Greek word's use draws a boundary across territory.Deu 4:41Deu 19:2Ezk 42:20
can put the barrier between people and God himself: Isaiah says their wrongdoing is what has come between them and their God (Isaiah 59:2), and a foreigner is pictured fearing that the LORD will shut him out of his people (Isaiah 56:3), while a man who ignores the summons to Jerusalem is cut off from the assembly of returned exiles (Ezra 10:8). The Greek word can describe people being shut out by other people, but never a wall standing between someone and God.Isa 59:2Isa 56:3Ezr 10:8
קָדַשׁHebrew“to consecrate: consecate”the Hebrew verb for consecrating, which names the holy status a person or thing receives rather than the act of marking them off from the rest
Sorting one group out from another, with no thought of holiness attached. The angels pull the wicked out from among the righteous, and the shepherd divides one animal from another. The word describes the dividing itself, not any status the divided parties acquire.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
The separating can be hostile or plainly wrong. The same word covers people shutting a believer out of their company and Peter pulling back from eating with Gentiles, so the act can be something to condemn rather than something God does.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
Because the word says only that a line has been drawn, what the separated person is now for has to be stated alongside it. Paul is set apart "for the gospel of God", and elsewhere he simply takes the disciples out of the synagogue and meets with them elsewhere.Rom 1:1Act 19:9
Both
Both name God marking out a person for his own service, singling them out from everyone else for a particular task. The Spirit says to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work, just as Aaron and his sons are consecrated to serve as priests.Act 13:2Exo 28:41
Both can describe a calling settled before birth, so the person's life work is fixed while they are still in the womb rather than chosen later.Gal 1:15Jer 1:5
Both can call God's people to pull away from what would defile them, treating that withdrawal as the practical shape of belonging to God rather than as a private preference.2Co 6:17Lev 11:44
It makes something holy, not merely separate. The seventh day and the altar are given a standing that belongs to God's own sphere, a status no act of dividing by itself can confer.Gen 2:3Exo 20:11
God himself can be its object. People are commanded to treat him as holy, and he acts to show his own holiness in front of the nations, a use no word for separating could carry.Isa 8:13Ezk 36:23Lev 10:3
Holiness here spreads by touch. Whatever comes into contact with the holy offering becomes holy itself, so the word names a real quality passing from one thing to another.Lev 6:18Lev 6:27
It covers getting ready for something solemn: washing and preparing before people meet God, calling a public fast, and even mustering an army for battle.Exo 19:10Jos 3:5Jol 1:14Jer 6:4
It is used of handing property over to God as his. Spoil taken in war and even a house can be dedicated to him, which turns the object into something he owns rather than merely something kept apart.2Sa 8:11Lev 27:14
נָזַרHebrew“to dedicate”the Hebrew verb for binding yourself to God by giving something up, so the person separates themselves and pays for it, where the Greek verb usually has someone else drawing the line and costs the person nothing
Sorting a mixed group into two: this Greek word can describe someone standing over a crowd and putting each side where it belongs, as angels pull the wicked out from among the righteous and a shepherd parts the sheep from the goats. The Hebrew word never divides one group from another; it is about one person's own commitment.Mat 13:49Mat 25:32
Being marked off by someone else, with nothing given up: God sets Paul apart before he is born, and the Spirit tells the church to set Barnabas and Saul aside for a particular work. In each case the setting apart is done to the person, and the person gives up nothing to become it.Gal 1:15Act 13:2Rom 1:1
Shutting people out, or pulling back from them: it covers a community excluding believers from its own circle, and Peter drawing away from the Gentile Christians he had been eating with. That is a break between people, with no vow and no claim by God involved.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
Both
Both are rendered "set apart" or "separate," and both can describe a person being marked off for God rather than left in ordinary use: Israelites take on the vow that dedicates them to the LORD, and the Spirit has two men set aside for a work.Num 6:2Act 13:2
Both can also mean keeping clear of what defiles: Israel is to be held back from its uncleanness, and Paul tells the Corinthians to come out and stay away from the unclean thing.Lev 15:312Co 6:17
Going without is the substance of the act, not a side effect: the person under this vow keeps away from wine and from everything the vine produces, and stays clear of a dead body, for as long as the vow runs.Num 6:3Num 6:6
A stretch of self denial a person takes on himself, and can therefore ask whether to keep: the people in Zechariah had gone without food in the fifth month year after year and wanted to know if they still should.Zec 7:3
Holding back from holy things while unclean: priests are told to keep their hands off Israel's offerings when they are in an unclean state, so the restraint protects what is holy rather than commissioning anyone for a task.Lev 22:2
It can be pointed at the wrong object: a person can pull himself away from God and toward idols, and Israel gave itself over to the shameful thing at Baal Peor. The devotion is real, and misdirected.Ezk 14:7Hos 9:10
פָּלָהHebrew“be distinguished”the Hebrew verb for God singling out one group and treating it differently from everyone else, always with God as the one who draws the line, where the Greek verb also lets people draw it, sometimes wrongly
lets people be the ones who draw the line, and often they draw it wrongly: a hostile crowd shuts the disciples out for Jesus' sake (Luke 6:22), and Peter quietly pulls back from eating with Gentile believers once other men arrive (Galatians 2:12). In every use of the Hebrew word God alone does the separating.Luk 6:22Gal 2:12
commissions someone for a specific job, not merely marking them out as different: the gathered church at Antioch is told to release two men for the work they are called to (Acts 13:2), and Paul opens a letter describing himself as "set apart" for the good news he preaches (Romans 1:1). The Hebrew word never assigns a task.Act 13:2Rom 1:1
can be asked of the readers themselves as a deliberate step away from what would compromise them: believers are commanded to come out and be separate (2 Corinthians 6:17), and Paul physically moves the disciples out of the synagogue into a lecture hall when the arguing turns abusive (Acts 19:9).2Co 6:17Act 19:9
can name a final sorting that settles where people belong for good, not a line drawn while history carries on: angels come out at the close of the age and take the wicked out from among the righteous (Matthew 13:49). Every use of the Hebrew word marks off a people who then keep living alongside the others.Mat 13:49
Both
both describe God separating one group from another so that the difference is plain to everyone watching. In Exodus 11:7 the point of the last plague is that Israel will know the LORD "makes a distinction" between Egypt and Israel; in Matthew 25:32 the Son of Man "will separate" the assembled nations the way a shepherd divides sheep from goats.Exo 11:7Mat 25:32
both are used of God claiming particular people as his own, ahead of and apart from anything those people contribute, and English Bibles reach for the same wording, "set apart", in each place. Psalm 4:3 says the LORD has set apart the faithful for himself; in Galatians 1:15 Paul says God set him apart from his mother's womb.Psa 4:3Gal 1:15
draws its line to shelter, so the difference is protection as much as distinction: the swarms of flies stop at the border of Goshen where God's people live (Exodus 8:22), and not one animal belonging to Israel dies while Egypt's livestock do (Exodus 9:4).Exo 8:22Exo 9:4
makes a people's distinctness rest on God's presence traveling with them rather than on anything they are or do: Moses argues that nothing else will mark Israel off from every other nation on the face of the earth (Exodus 33:16).Exo 33:16
shades from being set apart into being remarkable, the sort of thing that stops a person in wonder: the psalmist asks God to make his loyal love stand out extraordinarily (Psalm 17:7), and praises God because he himself was made in a way that leaves him awestruck (Psalm 139:14). The Greek word carries no such sense of the marvelous.Psa 17:7Psa 139:14
What scholars say about aphorizō
The lexica treat ἀφορίζω as a single verb with a unified core, ἀπό with ὁρίζω, "to mark off by a boundary from". BDAG divides the New Testament usage into separation from a group (Mt 13:49; 25:32; Acts 19:9;2 Cor 6:17;Gal 2:12), exclusion or ostracism (Lk 6:22), and selection of a person for a purpose (Acts 13:2;Rom 1:1;Gal 1:15); LSJ and EDNT agree on the same range, and the documentary papyri collected by Moulton and Milligan attest the mundane sense of marking off a plot of land. The Septuagint employs the verb heavily for בָּדַל in the priestly material, where separating clean from unclean and Israel from the nations is a cultic act, and this background is generally taken to inform the Pauline uses of Rom 1:1 and Gal 1:15, which also echo the prophetic call formulas of Jer 1:5 and Isa 49:1. The much discussed question of whether ἀφωρισμένος in Rom 1:1 plays on the name Pharisee, usually derived from an Aramaic word meaning "separated", is treated skeptically by Cranfield and entertained more openly by Dunn; the two terms are etymologically unrelated, so any allusion would be conceptual rather than linguistic. On Lk 6:22 commentators divide over whether the verb denotes formal synagogal expulsion or a broader social ostracism, with the lexica themselves leaving the referent open.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἀφορίζωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἀφορίζωlexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀφορίζωlexicon
K. L. Schmidt, "ὁρίζω, ἀφορίζω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), vol. 5dictionary
Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), s.v. ἀφορίζωdictionary
C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC (1975), on Romans 1:1commentary
James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary 38A (1988), on Romans 1:1commentary
I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, NIGTC (1978), on Luke 6:22commentary