boaō

βοάω

GreekG0994“cry out, shout, ...”

Appears 12 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 3:3Mrk 1:3Mrk 15:34Luk 3:4Luk 9:38Luk 18:7Luk 18:38Jhn 1:23Act 8:7Act 17:6Act 25:24Gal 4:27

Root family

boaōβοάωto cry out12G994
- boēβοήoutcry1G995
  - boēthosβοηθόςa helper1G998
    - boētheōβοηθέωto help8G997
    - boētheiaβοήθειαhelp2G996

Names & words formed with this

anaboaōἀναβοάωto cry out1G310

Word studybo-AH-ohverb

What boaō means

to cry out: to raise the voice into a loud, carrying call that is meant to be heard.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the plain Greek verb for lifting the voice to a shout. Its whole force is volume and reach: a voice pushed loud enough to cross a distance and land on whoever is meant to hear it. Almost every time it appears, the words of the shout follow immediately after, so the loudness is in service of something the shouter needs said.

The same shout does very different work depending on who raises it:

the announcement of a herald, the voice in the wilderness that all four Gospels use to introduce John the Baptist
an urgent appeal to someone who can help, a father calling about his son and a blind beggar calling for mercy as Jesus passes
the massed shouting of a hostile crowd pressing a charge, in Thessalonica and again before a Roman governor
a cry forced out by extremity, from Jesus at the end on the cross and from unclean spirits leaving those they had held
a burst of gladness, the childless woman commanded to break out and shout

What holds these together is the voice rather than the feeling behind it. The Greek word for a scream (κράζω) leans toward a ragged and sometimes wordless cry, and the ordinary word for calling or summoning a person (φωνέω) need not be loud at all. This word sits between them as the clear loud call. In Galatians the two halves of one command stand side by side, bursting out (ῥήγνυμι) and then shouting.

It is also the word the Greek Old Testament reaches for when Israel cries out under oppression, standing in for the Hebrew verb for that outcry (צָעַק) and for the broad Hebrew verb for calling aloud (קָרָא). That background is audible in the parable of the persistent widow, where God's chosen ones cry to him day and night and are heard.

Nuances

1athe carrying voice of an announcement: a shout raised so a message will be heard at a distance.

Mat 3:3Mrk 1:3Luk 3:4Jhn 1:23

1bto cry out to someone who can help: an urgent appeal flung at a person or at God.

Luk 9:38Luk 18:7Luk 18:38

1cto shout as a crowd: many voices raised together to press a charge or a demand.

TranslatabilityDirect

Act 17:6Act 25:24

1dto cry out under extremity: a loud cry wrung out by anguish or by force.

Mrk 15:34Act 8:7

1eto raise a shout of gladness: to break out loudly in joy.

Gal 4:27

What boaō does not mean

Older English Bibles almost always render this word "cry" or "cried," which now suggests weeping. It never means to weep. It means to raise the voice loudly, and the person shouting may be glad, furious, desperate, or simply making an announcement.

Volume by itself is not proof of raw emotion. The shrieking, ragged edge that English readers often hear in "crying out" belongs more to the Greek word for a scream (κράζω); this one can be the steady loud voice of a herald.

The best known line that uses it, "a voice of one crying in the wilderness," is a quotation of Isaiah, and the phrase "in the wilderness" can be read two ways. In Hebrew it most naturally goes with what follows, prepare the way, so that the road is built in the desert. The Gospel writers read it with the voice, so that the shout itself is located in the desert where John was baptizing. That is how the Greek translation they used lays the line out, so they are not misquoting; they are following a reading that was already available.

What scholars say about boaō

BDAG divides βοάω into a general sense of using the voice at high volume (call, shout, cry out) and a narrower sense of crying out to someone for aid, assigning Luke 18:7 to the latter. LSJ traces the classical range from the ringing shout and the battle cry to the roar of inanimate things such as waves and wind, and to calling upon a person or a god, with the verb formed on the onomatopoeic noun βοή. The word belongs to a well worked New Testament group for loud vocalization alongside κράζω, κραυγάζω and φωνέω; Grundmann's TDNT treatment of κράζω sets out the contrast, with κράζω carrying the harsher and often inarticulate edge, while βοάω regularly governs the content of the shout. In the Septuagint βοάω most often renders צָעַק and זָעַק, the outcry of the oppressed that God is expected to hear, and also קָרָא for calling aloud; at Isaiah 54:1, quoted in Galatians 4:27, it renders צהל, a shrill cry of exultation, which accounts for the one joyful New Testament instance. Eleven of the twelve New Testament occurrences stand in the Gospels and Acts, and five belong to Isaianic quotations (Isaiah 40:3 in all four Gospels, Isaiah 54:1 in Galatians), so the distribution is heavily shaped by that material. On the Evangelists' construal of Isaiah 40:3, taking ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ with the participle rather than with the imperative that follows, and its function in locating John's ministry, see Marcus and Watts.

Sources

BDAG (Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., s.v. βοάωlexicon
LSJ (Liddell, Scott, Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. βοάω, βοήlexicon
Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), s.v. βοάωdictionary
Walter Grundmann, "κράζω, κραυγή, κραυγάζω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 3:898-903dictionary
Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., s.v. βοάωlexicon
Joel Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992), 12-47monograph
Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah's New Exodus in Mark, WUNT 88 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 53-90monograph

boaō

What boaō means

to cry out: to raise the voice into a loud, carrying call that is meant to be heard.

Nuances

What scholars say about boaō

Sources

All attested forms of βοάω

present active participle genitive m s

aorist active indicative 3s

present active participle nominative m p

aorist active imperative 2s

present active participle accusative n p

present active participle genitive m p

What boaō means

to cry out: to raise the voice into a loud, carrying call that is meant to be heard.

Nuances

Related words

The English words used to translate boaō

How boaō differs from similar Greek words

boaō in the other biblical languages

What scholars say about boaō

Sources

All attested forms of βοάω

present active participle genitive m s

aorist active indicative 3s

present active participle nominative m p

aorist active imperative 2s

present active participle accusative n p

present active participle genitive m p