StrongerBible

distazō

διστάζω

GreekG1365“doubt, hesitate”

Appears 2 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 14:31Mat 28:17
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradedis-TAH-zoverb

What distazō means

to waver between two options: to be of two minds, pulled in two directions, by someone whose faith is real but divided.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word names the moment a person is split between two things, suspended and unable to settle. It is built on the Greek word for "twice," and that "two-ness" is the whole idea: the mind is in two places at once. In everyday Greek it was the plain word for being unsure which way to go on a question or a decision, not the language of philosophical skepticism.

That shade matters, because English "doubt" has drifted toward something this word does not mean. To a modern ear "doubt" suggests intellectual disbelief, withholding assent from a claim. This word is not that. It describes a believer who still trusts but is divided in the moment, caught between two pulls. The person has faith; the faith is just not whole.

The Bible uses it only twice, and both are in Matthew. Both times it sits right next to worship, and both times it goes with Matthew's idea of "little faith (ὀλιγόπιστος)." When Peter walks on the water, he is torn between Jesus in front of him and the wind around him, and he begins to sink, yet he still cries out for Jesus to save him. When the risen Jesus appears in Galilee, the disciples bow down to him and waver at the very same time. In both scenes the wavering lives inside faith, not outside it.

Mat 14:31Mat 28:17
Mat 28:17

Who wavers in Matthew 28:17, and how strong the wavering is.

  • majorityAll eleven disciples both worship and waver; Matthew's wording continues with the group just named, so it is not a new or separate set of people, and the wavering is a real but divided faith, not unbelief.; Keith H. Reeves, "They Worshipped Him, and They Doubted: Matthew 28:17," The Bible Translator 49 (1998) 344-349; K. L. McKay, "The Use of hoi de in Matthew 28.17: A Response to K. Grayston," JSNT 24 (1985) 71-72; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (2007); Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28, WBC 33B (1995)
  • minorityOnly some of the eleven wavered while the rest worshipped; the wording singles out a part of the group as an afterthought.; Pieter W. van der Horst, "Once More: The Translation of hoi de in Matthew 28:17," JSNT 27 (1986) 27-30
  • minorityThe waverers were people other than the eleven, or the wavering was about whether it was truly Jesus, or whether worship was proper, rather than divided faith.; N. B. Stonehouse, The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ (1944); E. M. Howe, "...But Some Doubted," JETS 18 (1975) 173-180; L. G. Parkhurst Jr., "Matthew 28:16-20 Reconsidered," ExpT 90 (1979) 179-180

What scholars say about distazō

Across the standard lexica and Matthean commentary there is firm agreement that this verb denotes wavering or being divided between two options, not the modern sense of intellectual disbelief. BDAG divides it into doubting/wavering and hesitating over a course of action; LSJ glosses "doubt, hesitate" with a long classical pedigree (Plato, Aristotle); Louw-Nida places it in the belief domain as "uncertain about which of two possibilities is true"; Spicq, drawing on the documentary papyri, argues for hesitation and indecision distinct from unbelief. The verb is built on the word for "twice," and the cognate field (the noun for doubt, the adjective "double-souled," the "double heart" idiom) reinforces the idea of being in two. It is absent from the Septuagint, where the unbelief field is carried instead by the apisteo word group, which scholars (e.g. Hagner, France) take as a signal that Matthew chose ordinary koine speech for hesitation rather than Septuagintal unbelief vocabulary. At Matthew 14:31 commentators are nearly unanimous that Peter's wavering is the activity of his "little faith," not unbelief (France, Hagner, Osborne, Blomberg, Nolland, Keener). Matthew 28:17 is heavily contested on three fronts: the referent of "but they/some," the strength of the wavering, and its theological function; the weight of recent Matthean scholarship has moved toward reading the whole group as both worshipping and wavering (Reeves, McKay, France, Hagner), with Luz pressing for a stronger inner conflictedness than English "hesitate" conveys. A connected debate concerns the related verb diakrino: Spitaler and Porter-Stevens argue it never meant "to doubt" in post-classical Greek and that writers who meant cognitive wavering reached for this verb instead.

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 (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), 3rd ed., s.v. distazolexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v. distazolexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 31.37lexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. distazodictionary
  • G. Barth, "distazo," in Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT) 1:342dictionary
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. distazolexicon
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (2007)commentary
  • Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28, WBC 33B (1995)commentary
  • Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20, Hermeneia (2001); Matthew 21-28, Hermeneia (2005)commentary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC, vols. 2-3 (1991, 1997)commentary
  • Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, ZECNT (2010)commentary
  • Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, NAC (1992)commentary
  • I. P. Ellis, "But Some Doubted," NTS 14 (1968) 574-580article
  • Keith H. Reeves, "They Worshipped Him, and They Doubted: Matthew 28:17," The Bible Translator 49 (1998) 344-349article
  • Pieter W. van der Horst, "Once More: The Translation of hoi de in Matthew 28:17," JSNT 27 (1986) 27-30article
  • Peter Spitaler, "Diakrinesthai in Mt. 21:21, Mk. 11:23, Acts 10:20, Rom. 4:20, 14:23, Jas. 1:6, and Jude 22," Novum Testamentum 49 (2007) 1-39article
  • Stanley E. Porter and Chris S. Stevens, "Doubting BDAG on Doubt," Filologia Neotestamentaria 30 (2017) 43-70article

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

All attested forms of διστάζω

aorist active indicative 2s

ἐδίστασας

Mat 14:31

aorist active indicative 3p

ἐδίστασαν

Mat 28:17