StrongerBible

eparkeō

ἐπαρκέω

GreekG1884“relieve, help, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

1Ti 5:101Ti 5:16 (2×)
Compound of
epiἐπίupon/to/against909G1909
arkeōἀρκέωbe sufficient8G714
Word studyResearch-gradeep-ar-KEH-ohverb

What eparkeō means

to provide practical help to someone in need, especially material or financial support given out of one's own resources.

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This is a hands-on word for meeting someone's needs, not a soft word for helping out in general. In the everyday Greek of the first century it named what a patron did for a dependent, what a family did for its widowed relatives, what a friend did for a friend in hard times: handing over real aid from what you have. Both times it appears in the New Testament it carries this weight of tangible provision.

The word grew out of an older idea of being enough for someone. Centuries earlier it could mean warding off danger, but by the first century that fighting sense had faded and the word had settled into meaning to provide for, relieve, and support. Personal letters, legal documents, and even a grave inscription from the period use it for a person's ongoing care of those who could not manage on their own.

The two New Testament uses form a matched pair. In the first, an older widow qualifies for the church's support partly because she herself once relieved people in distress. In the second, believers are told to provide for their own widowed relatives so that the church's limited funds can be reserved for widows who have no one else. The same word describes both the giving she once did and the giving now expected of her family.

1Ti 5:101Ti 5:16 (2×)

Disputed

How much the prefixed epi- shapes the compound's force beyond the base verb arkeo ("to be enough, suffice"). This concerns nuance, not the core meaning.

  • majorityThe prefix is directional: it focuses the sufficiency on a specific person in need, so the verb means to render assistance particularly fitted to the need.; Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, sec. 35.32; I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (1999); Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, NICNT (2006)
  • minorityThe prefix intensifies the base verb, so the sense is to be strong enough for another's need.; J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v.; G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v.
  • minorityThe prefix adds no special force; the compound is simply the ordinary transitive verb for rendering sufficient support.; BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), 3rd ed., s.v.; LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v.

What scholars say about eparkeō

The lexica agree that in 1 Timothy 5:10 and 5:16 the verb means to render concrete, resource-based assistance to a person in need (BDAG, s.v.; LSJ, which cites 5:10 directly; Louw-Nida sec. 35.32 in the domain "Help, Care For"). Moulton-Milligan and Spicq document the verb's everyday documentary register, where it is the standard term in papyri and inscriptions for a benefactor's material support of a dependent; Spicq presses its technical sense of standing, formal maintenance rather than a single act of almsgiving. Kittel's TDNT treats the compound under the base verb arkeo and reads it as ordinary benefaction vocabulary absorbed into Christian charity rather than a theologically distinctive term. Diachronically the Homeric defensive sense of warding off danger has disappeared by the Koine period, leaving the senses provide for, relieve, and support (LSJ traces the full range). Scholars differ mainly on the social world around the word, not its meaning: how strictly material the widow's past aid in v. 10 is (Knight and Kelly stress the financial dimension; Marshall, Towner, and Johnson read it more broadly as any concrete relief), and whether v. 16 invokes Greco-Roman dowry and household-maintenance obligations (so Bruce Winter's 1988 Tyndale Bulletin study, followed by Marshall, Mounce, and Towner). A separate text-critical question in v. 16 concerns the subject of the imperative: the critical text reads the feminine pistē (any believing woman), against the expanded reading any believing man or woman of the Byzantine text, Textus Receptus, and KJV; Metzger's committee adopted the shorter reading at a C level of confidence, and every major commentary on the Pastorals follows it. The lexica also record a minor disagreement over the force of the epi- prefix (directional, intensive, or none).

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), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v.lexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v.lexicon
  • Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, sec. 35.32lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), s.v.lexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (1994), s.v.dictionary
  • Gerhard Kittel, "ἀρκέω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:464-467dictionary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (1999)commentary
  • George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles, NIGTC (1992)commentary
  • William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, WBC 46 (2000)commentary
  • Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus, NICNT (2006)commentary
  • Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy, Anchor Bible (2001)commentary
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (1994)monograph
  • Bruce W. Winter, "Providentia for the Widows of 1 Timothy 5:3-16," Tyndale Bulletin 39 (1988)article

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

All attested forms of ἐπαρκέω

aorist active indicative 3s

ἐπήρκεσεν

1Ti 5:10

aorist active subjunctive 3s

ἐπαρκέσῃ

1Ti 5:16

present active imperative 3s

ἐπαρκείτω

1Ti 5:16