power: the strength or ability to do something, especially God's effective power at work
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this word names capability, the strength to make something happen. It runs from ordinary human capacity (giving "according to ability") all the way up to the limitless power of God, which is where the New Testament puts most of its weight.
The word is favored for power that actually does something rather than power held in reserve. So it attaches to God acting, to the Spirit coming on people, to the gospel as a force that saves, and to the strength God supplies to believers under pressure. The resurrection of Jesus is its supreme display. Paul also turns it inside out: God's power is brought to its goal through human weakness, not around it, so that the weak are exactly where this power shows up.
Because this is power that produces results, the same word naturally extends to the visible results themselves, which is the second meaning, and to beings who possess such power, which is the third.
Nuances
1aGod's own power, by which he acts, saves, and raises the dead
a mighty work: a deed that openly displays power, a miracle
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
When the power produces a visible deed, the same word names the deed itself. In the Gospels these are Jesus' mighty works, the healings and exorcisms that show who he is, and the word is often plural for them. The towns that saw the most of them and still did not repent are judged the hardest.
This meaning carries into the early church, where mighty works mark the apostles' ministry and stand among the gifts God distributes. The deed is not magic or a mere wonder to gawk at. Where one common Greek word for a miracle points beyond the deed to what it signifies, and another stresses the shock of it, this word puts the accent on the power displayed and on its source. It is power breaking visibly into the world.
a power: a being or cosmic force that possesses power, including the heavenly bodies and spiritual powers
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
Because the word names power, it can also name those who hold it. In this sense it points to forces and beings rather than to an abstract quality. The plural "powers of the heavens" that are shaken at the end belong here, language drawn from the Old Testament's host of heaven.
It also covers spiritual powers ranged above the human world, the kind Paul lists among the things that cannot separate believers from God's love, and the same powers Christ overcomes and finally puts down. Used almost as a title, "the Power," it becomes a reverent way of naming God himself without saying the name, which is how Jesus speaks of sitting at the right hand of the Power.
Nuances
3athe heavenly bodies and unseen spiritual powers, whether the powers of the heavens or the cosmic powers Christ overcomes
Mat 24:29Mrk 13:25Luk 21:26Rom 8:381Co 15:24Eph 1:211Pe 3:22
Mat 24:29
What the cosmic "powers" Paul names actually are: personal spiritual beings, the spiritual side of human institutions and structures, or both at once.
majorityPersonal, organized spiritual beings, defeated at the cross and finally subjected when Christ returns.; C. E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities and Powers in Paul's Letters (IVP, 1992)
minorityThe inner, spiritual dimension of visible structures and institutions of power, at once spiritual and social-political.; W. Wink, Naming the Powers (Fortress, 1984); G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers (Clarendon, 1956)
contestedBoth dimensions together, inseparable in this kind of thinking: personal beings that are also at work in structures.; H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers (Herald Press, 1962)
3bthe Power, a reverent name for God himself
Mat 26:64Mrk 14:62Luk 22:69*Act 8:10*
4
meaning: the force a sound or word carries, what it signifies
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
In one place the word names not strength but significance: the force a spoken sound carries, what it actually means. Paul uses it of foreign speech that conveys nothing to a hearer who does not know the language, so the speaker is a foreigner to him.
This is a recognized ordinary Greek use of the word and is distinct from the power senses. It appears just once in the New Testament.
1Co 14:11
5
resources or wealth: economic abundance that makes someone rich
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In Revelation 18:3, the word names the economic abundance of Babylon's luxury. The merchants grow rich from its lavish scale, not from an ability to do something. This commercial use treats power as resources or wealth.
Names power as the ability to DO something, especially the working of miracles, so it commonly shows up as deeds of power ("mighty works").Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2Act 2:22
Stands for the divine power at work in the gospel and in believers, an outward force that produces effects.Rom 1:16Act 1:8Luk 24:49
Both
Both name a kind of might attributed to God and are heaped together in praise of his greatness.Rev 5:12Rev 7:12
Both appear together to describe the surpassing greatness of God's might at work toward believers.Eph 1:19
Names strength as the inherent might a person possesses, the capacity loved and exerted from within, as in loving God with all one's strength.Mrk 12:30Mrk 12:33Luk 10:27
Used of the supply of strength God gives for service and of his own mighty strength shown in judgment.1Pe 4:112Th 1:9Eph 6:10
κράτοςmight shown in dominion or a decisive display of strength, often ascribed to God in doxologies; dunamis is the working capacity itself
Names the capacity to act, the inherent ability or energy that produces an effect, often shown in concrete works of power (miracles, mighty deeds).Mat 7:22Mrk 6:5Act 1:8
Can be possessed and given to people, so it is poured out on disciples and at work within believers.Luk 24:49Act 6:8
Both
Both name God's overwhelming strength acting on behalf of his people, and the two stand side by side describing the same mighty working.Eph 1:19Col 1:11
Names the plain ability to do something, the capacity a person actually has, with no picture attached: a master hands out money to each servant "according to his own ability", and Paul says a poor church gave as much as it could and past what it could.Mat 25:152Co 8:3
Can name the powerful deed itself, so the plural means "miracles": the towns where Jesus did most of his mighty works, the astonished question about the works done by his hands, and the wonders by which God attested him.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2Act 2:22
Is treated as something that moves and is felt in the moment, going out of a person and healing whoever touches him.Mrk 5:30Luk 6:19Luk 8:46
Is promised to ordinary followers as something they will receive and be clothed with, which is never said of a horn.Luk 24:49Act 1:8
Both
Both name the strength that rulers wield, and Revelation moves between them in consecutive sentences: the ten horns are ten kings, and those same kings hand their strength over to the beast.Rev 17:12Rev 17:13Rev 13:1Rev 13:2
Both can name God's strength as the thing that rescues people: a "horn of salvation" raised up in David's house, and the good news called God's power for salvation.Luk 1:69Rom 1:16
Is a countable object you can see in a vision, so the number of horns carries the point: a Lamb with seven, a dragon with ten, a beast rising from the sea with ten, a lamb-like beast with two.Rev 5:6Rev 12:3Rev 13:1Rev 13:11
Can name a piece of furniture rather than any kind of strength: the four projecting corners of the golden altar, from which a voice speaks.Rev 9:13
Acts as a character in the story, doing what only a person can do: the ten horns hate the woman, strip her, and burn her.Rev 17:16
Names power that can be handed over to people: Jesus gives his followers power over demons, and they are told to wait in the city until they are clothed with power from above.Luk 9:1Luk 24:49Act 1:8
Can mean the mighty deeds themselves, so the plural counts up miracles as events rather than describing a quality: the towns where most of the miracles were done, the healings God did through Jesus, the workers of miracles set in the church.Mat 11:20Act 2:221Co 12:28
Is not reserved for God: hostile figures have it too, since the dragon hands his power to the beast, the kings hand theirs over as well, and the lawless one arrives with counterfeit displays of power.Rev 13:2Rev 17:132Th 2:9
Stretches down to plain human capacity with nothing majestic about it: each servant is given money according to his ability, the Macedonians gave beyond their means, and a language nobody understands has no force for the hearer.Mat 25:152Co 8:31Co 14:11
Describes strength actually at work inside a person, so it can rest on weakness and be prayed for as inner strengthening.2Co 12:9Eph 3:16Col 1:11
Both
Both praise God's unrivaled might, and the same thanksgiving can use them side by side: the elders address the one who rules over all and thank him for taking up his great power to reign.Rev 11:17
Both belong to the language of God finally asserting his claim over every rival, whether the crowd shouts that power belongs to our God or that the Lord our God who rules over all has begun to reign.Rev 19:1Rev 19:6
Works as a name for God rather than a quality he possesses, almost always locked into the fuller address "Lord God Almighty" in worship.Rev 4:8Rev 15:3Rev 16:7
Says that God holds everything under his rule, which is why it fits sentences about reigning and about being the temple of the city, where the point is scope of authority rather than energy exerted.Rev 19:6Rev 21:22
Belongs to God alone and is never transferred, so even when rival kings are gathered for battle the day is called the day of God the Almighty and the winepress is his.Rev 16:14Rev 19:15
Carries the warmth of the older promise language when Paul quotes it, where the one who rules over all is the same one who says he will be a father to his people.2Co 6:18
Names the force or might itself, the capacity to act, even apart from any single deed. It is the strength a person or being possesses, including the power of God by which the age to come breaks in.Mat 22:29Luk 24:49Act 1:8
Stands for the gospel and its saving effect as something with active strength, not for a display that points beyond itself.Rom 1:16
Can name a mighty deed as an act of raw power (a work of strength), without the added idea that it signifies or proves a message.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:5
Both
Both describe the miracles of Jesus and the apostles, often named together in the same breath, because one miracle both unleashes power and points to a meaning.Act 2:22
Both belong to the list of credentials that mark out a true apostle and confirm God's testimony to the message.2Co 12:12Heb 2:4
Both can be claimed by the work of deception at the end, the lawless one coming with counterfeit power and lying tokens together.2Th 2:9
Names a meaning-bearing mark or token that points to something beyond itself: it is meant to be read, to authenticate or warn, not merely to display strength.Luk 2:12Mat 24:3
Is what skeptics demand as proof, asking for a confirming token to validate a claim, a request that has no parallel sense for a word meaning raw power.Mat 12:38Mrk 8:11Jhn 6:30
Can be counterfeited or misleading: a false token used to deceive, since its whole purpose is to signify something, which makes a fake one possible.Mat 24:24Mrk 13:22
Names power itself, the inherent capacity or force that stands behind an act rather than the act as seen by onlookers.Luk 1:35Act 1:8Rom 1:16
Can label a concrete deed of power, a mighty work or miracle, counted as one of a person's works.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2
Extends to cosmic and spiritual powers, whether the ranked forces set against believers or the heavenly bodies that will be shaken.Rom 8:38Mat 24:29Mrk 13:25
Both
Both name miraculous phenomena that God works to authenticate his messengers, and they stand side by side in the stock list of signs, wonders, and mighty works.Act 2:22
Both confirm the gospel through the apostles, God bearing witness by them together as he distributes his acts among the first believers.Heb 2:4
Fixes attention on the sheer marvel of the event and the astonishment it strikes in those who see it; in the New Testament it never stands on its own but always rides alongside "signs."Jhn 4:48Act 15:12
Can point to a foreboding portent in the heavens above and on the earth below, an omen announcing the coming day of the Lord.Act 2:19
dunamis in the other biblical languages
גְּבוּרָהHebrew“might”Hebrew for might or strength shown in mighty deeds, often God's; close to dunamis as both power and the powerful act
Names a working miracle itself, a concrete deed of power, so its plural can mean "mighty works" that someone performs.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:5Act 2:22
Names an indwelling enabling power given to people, the Spirit's energy at work in believers and the gospel.Act 1:8Rom 1:16Luk 24:49
Both
Both name the inherent might of God displayed in his great deeds, and the Greek word regularly carries the sense the Hebrew word voices in Old Testament praise.Psa 145:11Psa 21:13Mat 22:29Mrk 12:24
Names the recorded achievements of a king, the "might" he showed in office, in the standard formula closing royal reigns.1Ki 15:232Ki 13:82Ki 20:20
Names heroic human strength in battle and the warrior's prowess, including the physical strength of an animal like the horse.Jdg 8:21Isa 3:25Psa 147:10
כֹּחַHebrew“strength”Hebrew for strength as raw capacity and vigor; overlaps dunamis as ability but lacks the miracle sense
Often names a concrete act of power, a miracle or "mighty work" that breaks into the world, not just a capacity held in reserve.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2
Becomes a near-personal force, the power of God or of the Spirit that rests on people and equips them, even spoken of almost as a title for God ("the Power").Act 1:8Luk 1:35Mat 26:64
Both
Both name might that belongs supremely to God and is shown in his great deeds of deliverance, the strength by which he saves his people.Exo 15:6Rom 1:16
Both can describe strength credited (or wrongly credited) to human beings, whether God's gift or a boast of one's own ability.Deu 8:17Act 6:8
Names raw bodily or physical strength: a man's vigor, the muscle to work, fight, or keep going, which can fail and run out.Jdg 16:61Sa 28:20Job 6:11
Stretches to the land's productive strength (its yield) and even to a kind of large lizard, senses with no counterpart in the Greek word.Gen 4:12Lev 11:30
חַיִלHebrew“strength: soldiers”Hebrew for strength, often martial or as an army's force; dunamis only sometimes carries this military shading
It can name a single act of power, a deed you can count: the towns where Jesus did most of his mighty works, the works people were astonished at, the unusual miracles done through Paul. The Aramaic word never names a deed.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2Act 19:11
It can name what a particular person is capable of, so it is often rendered "ability": the servants each get money in line with what they can handle, and the givers in Macedonia gave beyond what they could afford.Mat 25:152Co 8:3
It names power as something God supplies to people, so they are described as clothed with it or as receiving it when the Spirit comes.Luk 24:49Act 1:8
It stands in for God himself: "the right hand of the Power" is a reverent way of saying "God's right hand", and the gospel is called God's power for rescue.Mat 26:64Mrk 14:62Rom 1:16
Used of a voice it points to the sense the sounds carry rather than how loud they are: without knowing what a language means, the speaker is a foreigner to you.1Co 14:11
Both
Both can name a massed force rather than a quality: Daniel speaks of the strongest men in the king's army and of the army of heaven that God governs, and Matthew speaks of the powers of the heavens being shaken. Greek versions of Daniel use the Greek word for the Aramaic one in exactly this sense.Dan 3:20Dan 4:35Mat 24:29
Both can mean strength actually brought to bear against resistance, not merely held in reserve: force applied to halt the rebuilding in Ezra, and the power in Jesus' word that drives unclean spirits out.Ezr 4:23Luk 4:36
It describes the volume of a voice: a herald calls out "with strength", meaning at the top of his lungs, and so does the watcher in the dream and the panicking king of Babylon. The Greek word is never used for loudness.Dan 3:4Dan 4:14Dan 5:7
Every use is something concrete: soldiers, troops, muscle brought to bear, or a shout, never an ability a person holds or a wonder someone performs. In Ezra the officials stop the building work "by force", meaning armed men were sent.Ezr 4:23Dan 3:20
Names a concrete deed of power, a miracle or mighty work that someone performs. This is one of the most common New Testament uses and has no parallel in מאד, which never names an action or event.Mat 7:22Act 19:11Mrk 6:2
Carries weighty theological force as the power of God or of the gospel that brings salvation. מאד never functions as a theological power-word; it is at most a degree marker or, rarely, a person's own capacity.Rom 1:161Co 1:18Act 1:8
In the plural it can name personal spiritual forces, the heavenly bodies or unseen powers shaken at the end, or rival authorities. מאד never personifies anything or names a class of beings.Rom 8:38Mat 24:29Mrk 13:25
Both
Both can name the measure of capacity or resources a person brings to bear or has to give. In the two places מאד stands as a noun (loving God with all one's capacity, and Josiah turning to God the same way) it names the whole of what a person can give; δύναμις likewise names the ability or means a person gives according to or beyond. This overlap is exactly what led the Old Greek of the Shema to render the rare nominal מאד with δύναμις.2Co 8:3Mat 25:15Deu 6:52Ki 23:25
Its ordinary, overwhelmingly dominant job is as a plain intensifier meaning very or exceedingly, tacked onto a describing word or an action to raise its degree. δύναμις is a noun and is never used this way.Gen 1:31Gen 13:2
When doubled or stacked with a small word for in, it becomes the strongest dial Hebrew has for degree: not merely very but utterly, beyond all measure. δύναμις has no degree-word use at all and cannot be heightened this way.Gen 7:19Gen 17:2
Names the miraculous deeds themselves, not just an attribute: in the plural it counts the "mighty works" a person performs, something the Hebrew word for strength never does.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2Act 2:221Co 12:10Gal 3:5
Means a person's inherent capacity or ability to do a task, measured out to each one, a sense the Hebrew word for strength does not carry.Mat 25:152Co 8:3
Can name personified spiritual beings, the angelic ranks and the powers of the heavens, treated almost as a class of creatures; the Hebrew word for strength is never a being.Mat 24:29Rom 8:38Eph 1:21
Both
Both name the might that belongs supremely to God: strength is his by nature and is praised as his.Psa 68:351Co 1:24Rom 1:20
Both name a strength God imparts to his people, so that the weak are made strong by what comes from him.Psa 29:11Luk 24:49Eph 3:16
Is concretized as a refuge or fortress one shelters in: a strong tower, a place of safety in trouble, something the Greek word for power never becomes.Psa 28:8Psa 61:3Pro 18:10Jer 16:19
Is the strength ascribed to God in worship: the worshiper is told to "give the LORD strength," a praise formula the Greek word for power does not fill.Psa 29:1Psa 96:71Ch 16:28
Can be worn as splendor or majesty, strength as a robe of dignity paired with honor and glory, a nuance the Greek word for power does not carry.Psa 93:1Psa 96:6Pro 31:25
δύναμις can mean simple ability, the capacity a person has to do something, measured against what someone else can do. Hebrew צָבָא never names a capacity like this; it always names a body of people or a stretch of service.Mat 25:152Co 8:3
In the plural δύναμις names concrete acts of power, the deeds English Bibles call "mighty works" or "miracles". The word can point to a single event that happened, not to a force or a group of people.Mat 11:20Mrk 6:2Act 19:11Heb 2:4
δύναμις can be an active force that resides in someone and goes out from him to heal, or that works through a message and changes those who hear it. Nothing like this belongs to צָבָא, which is a countable force of beings rather than an energy at work.Mrk 5:30Luk 6:19Luk 8:46Rom 1:16
Both
Both words can name the array of the sky, the sun and moon and stars and the unseen beings ranked with them, understood as God's own force. Where Hebrew says "the host of the heavens", the Greek of the New Testament says "the powers of the heavens", so the two words meet at exactly this point.Gen 2:1Neh 9:6Isa 34:4Mat 24:29Mrk 13:25
Both are used of unseen powers arranged in ranks under a commander, so that naming them asserts who they answer to. Hebrew pictures the heavenly host standing around God's throne and obeying his word; Greek lists "powers" among the ranks made subject to Christ or unable to separate his people from him.1Ki 22:19Psa 103:21Psa 148:2Rom 8:381Pe 3:22
צָבָא is first of all a human army: fighting men counted by division, drawn up under officers, and sent out to war. δύναμις is never a marching army of soldiers in the New Testament.Num 1:3Num 2:3Exo 12:412Sa 10:7
Because an army serves a fixed term, צָבָא also names a stretch of assigned duty, whether the years a man owes at the tent of meeting or the hard service a life or a city has to see through. δύναμις carries no idea of a term of service.Num 4:3Num 8:24Job 7:1Job 14:14Isa 40:2
צָבָא supplies a divine title, "the LORD of hosts", which becomes God's standing name in the prophets. The title is so tied to the Hebrew word that the New Testament writers keep the Hebrew itself rather than reaching for a Greek word for power, so δύναμις never functions as a name for God.1Sa 1:3Isa 6:3Zec 4:6Mal 1:6
What scholars say about dunamis
Standard lexica organize dunamis around capability that issues in effect. BDAG distinguishes the abstract capacity or power (most often God's), the concrete deed of power or miracle (frequent in the Gospels, usually plural), a being or transcendent power (the powers of heaven, and the near-title "the Power" for God), and the meaning or force of a sound (1 Cor 14:11). Grundmann's TDNT article traces the term from secular Greek (where it is cosmic-natural force in Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics) through the Septuagint, where it becomes consistently personal and theocentric: it renders the Hebrew vocabulary of might and especially God's mighty acts, and the Greek Psalter even calls God "Lord of the powers," while the same plural names the host of heaven. Second Temple Judaism developed "the Power" (ha-Gevurah) as a reverential surrogate for the divine name, which Dalman first showed lies behind Mark 14:62. The present scholarly consensus on background is integrative: New Testament dunamis is rooted in this Septuagint and Jewish stream, takes on lexical color from its Hellenistic surroundings, and is reshaped by the Christ-event, with the resurrection as the supreme demonstration of divine power. Kasemann's influential reading takes God's power as an active, cosmos-reclaiming force rather than a static attribute; Fee documents how closely Paul links the Spirit and power, defining the Spirit functionally as God's empowering presence; and the distinctively Pauline note is power perfected in weakness and in the cross.
Where scholars disagree about dunamis
Whether Luke deliberately pairs "power" with "the Spirit" specifically to mark miraculous power, treating the Spirit primarily as the Spirit of prophecy, or instead uses power as the broad effect of a single, comprehensive work of the Spirit.
minorityLuke qualifies the Spirit with power whenever miraculous power is in view, because his Spirit is fundamentally the Spirit of prophecy and donated power is a distinct, added dimension.; R. Menzies, Empowered for Witness (Sheffield, 1991)
majorityLuke does not split a prophetic Spirit from miraculous power; power is the effect of a single comprehensive work of the Spirit, with the Spirit the agent.; M. Turner, Power from on High (Sheffield, 1996); J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (SCM, 1975)
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. δύναμιςlexicon
W. Grundmann, "δύναμαι, δύναμις," TDNT 2:284-317theological-dictionary
LSJ, s.v. δύναμιςlexicon
Colin Brown, "Power," NIDNTT 2:601-616theological-dictionary
G. D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Hendrickson, 1994)monograph
E. Kasemann, "The Righteousness of God in Paul," in New Testament Questions of Today (SCM, 1969), 168-82article
C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Hendrickson, 1994), 1:354-63theological-dictionary