StrongerBible

boētheō

βοηθέω

GreekG0997“help, come to the aid of”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 15:25Mrk 9:22Mrk 9:24Act 16:9Act 21:282Co 6:2Heb 2:18Rev 12:16
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeboh-ay-THEH-ohverb

What boētheō means

to come to someone's aid in trouble: to help by rushing to the rescue, in time and to real effect

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

At its core this word means to come to the aid of someone in trouble and actually rescue them, not to stand by with mild assistance. The old picture behind the word is a person running toward a shout for help, and even after that image faded into ordinary speech, the sense of urgent, effective rescue stayed with it.

In everyday Greek it was the natural word for troops rushing to reinforce an ally in battle, for a doctor stepping in to treat the sick, and for someone defending another in court. In each case the help is timely and it works: the ally is relieved, the patient is treated, the accused is defended.

The Greek Old Testament gave the word a deeper charge. It became the standard word for God rescuing his people, so much so that the Psalms repeatedly call God the one who helps, a title that stands right beside "savior" and "deliverer." The New Testament inherits that charged sense. It is heard in the desperate cries brought to Jesus, a father pleading for his son and a mother for her daughter; in Paul's quotation of Isaiah that God "helped" his servant; in the letter to the Hebrews, which makes Christ the one able to help those being tested; and even in the strange scene where the earth itself comes to a woman's rescue. The related noun for a helper (βοηθός) and the noun for the help itself (βοήθεια) carry the same weight, and the whole family answers to the Hebrew verb for helping (עָזַר).

Mat 15:25Mrk 9:22Mrk 9:24Act 16:9Act 21:282Co 6:2Heb 2:18Rev 12:16

What scholars say about boētheō

The compound is formed from boē ("cry, shout") and theō ("to run"), literally "to run at a cry," with the Homeric adjective boēthoos ("hastening to the war-cry") as its likely parent; LSJ, BDAG, and Beekes affirm the derivation, while Louw-Nida and NIDNTTE (Silva), following Barr and Silva on illegitimate totality transfer, treat the etymology as dormant in Koine, surviving mainly in emergency contexts. LSJ documents a broad concrete range in classical prose: military reinforcement (Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon), medical intervention (Hippocrates, Dioscorides), and legal or forensic aid (Aeschines, Plato). Moulton-Milligan show it as the standard verb of petitions, appeals, and amulets in the papyri (Kyrie, boēthēson). The theological weight comes from the Septuagint, where the word-group (verb, plus the nouns boētheia and boēthos) renders the Hebrew root azar and makes boēthos effectively a divine title in the Psalter, standing beside sōtēr and rhystēs; Buchsel (TDNT 1:628-629), Muraoka (GELS), Spicq (TLNT), and Bons (Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint) trace this. In the Gospels and Acts the imperatives read as urgent cries (Mark 9:22, 9:24; Matthew 15:25; Acts 16:9, 21:28); commentators debate how loudly the Psalter is sounding (Marcus, Evans, and Watts press a Psalmic-Christological reading of Mark 9; Yarbro Collins notes the near-identical Epictetus formula; France resists over-Christologizing; Bruce and Johnson read Acts 16:9 as evangelistic, Pervo and Keener as a stock literary formula) and whether the aorist/present imperative shift encodes urgency (Fanning and Porter caution that the aorist is often the unmarked form in supplication). Paul's single use (2 Corinthians 6:2) is a verbatim citation of Isaiah 49:8 LXX, where hearing and helping name one saving act (Thrall, Harris, Furnish, Barnett). Hebrews systematically transfers the Psalter's divine-helper vocabulary to Christ across an inclusio (2:18; 4:16; 13:6, the last quoting Psalm 118:6 LXX), read as intercessory and pastoral rescue by Attridge, Lane, Ellingworth, Koester, and Cockerill; the popular "help-ropes / storm-tossed ship" reading of 4:16 (drawn from the maritime sense of the noun at Acts 27:17) is a homiletical embellishment that no major commentator endorses. Revelation 12:16 makes the earth God's rescuing agent, on the model of Exodus 15:12 and Numbers 16:30-33 (Aune, Beale, Osborne, Koester).

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, s.v. βοηθέωlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. βοηθέωlexicon
  • Friedrich Büchsel, "βοηθέω, βοήθεια, βοηθός," TDNT 1:628-629theological-dictionary
  • M. Silva (ed.), NIDNTTE, vol. 1, s.v. βοηθέωtheological-dictionary
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Peeters 2009), s.v. βοηθόςlexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the NT (Hendrickson 1994), vol. 1, s.v. βοηθέωtheological-dictionary
  • James H. Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. βοηθέωlexicon
  • Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Fortress 1989)commentary
  • William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8 and Hebrews 9-13 (WBC 47A-B; Word 1991)commentary
  • Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT; Eerdmans 2012)commentary
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans 2005)commentary
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible 27A; Yale 2009)commentary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation 6-16 (WBC 52B; Nelson 1998)commentary

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

All attested forms of βοηθέω

aorist active imperative 2s

βοήθησον

Mrk 9:22, Act 16:9

present active imperative 2s

βοήθει

Mat 15:25, Mrk 9:24

aorist active indicative 1s

ἐβοήθησά

2Co 6:2

aorist active indicative 3s

ἐβοήθησεν

Rev 12:16

aorist active infinitive

βοηθῆσαι

Heb 2:18

present active imperative 2p

βοηθεῖτε

Act 21:28