a strong desire: an intense reaching of the heart toward something, which is good or evil depending on what it reaches for
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its root this word simply names a powerful want. It is the heart set on something and straining toward it, and by itself it carries no verdict about right or wrong. What decides its color is the object: the same word describes Jesus earnestly longing to share a last meal with his friends and describes the cravings that drag a person into sin.
In the New Testament the word leans heavily negative, because most of what the fallen heart strains after is out of bounds. Writers like Paul, Peter, John, and James use it again and again for the pull toward what God forbids, the appetite of the old self that has to be put to death. That is why many English Bibles usually render it "lust."
But the negative weight comes from the settings, not from the word itself. Read on its own it means an eager desire, and a handful of passages use it for longings that are wholly good. Keeping both ends in view is the key to reading it well: the danger is not desire as such, but desire fastened on the wrong thing.
Nuances
1aan eager, good or innocent longing for something
Luk 22:15Php 1:231Th 2:17
1bsinful craving: the appetite of the fallen self reaching for what is wrong
the Greek word is stronger and more urgent than plain "desire": a craving that grips and drives, not a mild preferenceJas 1:14Jas 1:15
Both
both name the heart reaching out toward something it wantsPhp 1:23
Only desire
"desire" is flat and neutral in English, so it can undersell the moral weight and intensity the Greek word carries in its darker uses
“craving”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“longing”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“concupiscence”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How epithumia differs from similar Greek words
πάθοςa passion that overpowers a person, something you suffer or are swept up in; this word is rather the active craving that reaches out toward its object.
can name a good and honorable longing, not only a sinful one: a wholehearted reaching for something rightly wanted.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
names the craving itself as an active reaching toward a specific object, the wanting that conceives and gives birth to sin once it fixes on what is forbidden.Jas 1:14Jas 1:151Jn 2:16
Both
both name sinful desire that Paul groups among the deeds of the flesh believers must put to death.Col 3:51Th 4:5
always names a degrading, dishonorable passion that has taken hold, a condition a person is given over to and mastered by rather than a mere act of wanting; it is never a neutral or good desire.Rom 1:26
ἡδονήthe pleasure or gratification itself; this word is the craving that hungers for that pleasure.
ὄρεξιςa reaching-out appetite (used once, of men inflamed with desire in Romans 1:27); a near-synonym, but rare, where this word is the common term for craving.
Names the desire or craving itself, the pull toward an object. Most often it is sinful craving that the New Testament tells believers to put to death.Gal 5:24Col 3:51Jn 2:16
The same word can be a good and honorable longing, which shows it names the desire itself and not a failing. Jesus longs to eat the Passover, and Paul longs to depart and be with Christ.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
It is the inner impulse that gives birth to sin, the craving that lures and drags a person off before any act follows. It names the seed of the deed rather than the loss of restraint.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15
Both
Both belong to the New Testament's warnings about the appetites of the body, and each is treated as something a believer must overcome rather than indulge.Mat 23:25Gal 5:16
Names the failure to restrain oneself, the missing self-mastery, rather than the appetite that needs restraining. It is the vice of a person who cannot govern his own impulses.Mat 23:251Co 7:5
It is always a fault and never a wholesome longing. Both times it appears it marks a weakness: the inner filth paired with greed, and the lack of restraint that Satan can exploit when a couple deprives each other.Mat 23:251Co 7:5
It is a craving that reaches out toward something wanted, whether food, freedom, or forbidden pleasure, rather than an angry reaction.Luk 22:15Rom 1:241Jn 2:16
It can be entirely good, naming an honest longing and not a sin.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
It is the inner root out of which sin is conceived and grows.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15
Both
Both name inner passions that the New Testament lists among the works of the flesh and tells believers to put to death.Col 3:5Col 3:8
names the active reaching of the will toward an object, a craving FOR something in particular, so it is regularly tied to the thing wanted (what the eyes see, what belongs to a neighbor).Rom 7:71Jn 2:16
is not sinful in itself; depending on what is longed for it can be a wholesome or even holy longing.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
Both
both name the inner drives of the flesh that Paul says those who belong to Christ have crucified and put to death.Gal 5:24
in this sense names the sinful impulse as something a person undergoes, a passion that stirs and works inside the body rather than a craving the person deliberately aims at an object.Rom 7:5
Can name a good and honorable longing, not only a sinful one: Jesus says he has earnestly longed to eat the Passover, and Paul writes of his longing to depart and be with Christ and his longing to see the Thessalonians again.Luk 22:15Php 1:231Th 2:17
Reaches into bodily and sexual appetite, the cravings of the flesh that dishonor the body: the lusts of the heart, the passion of lust among those who do not know God, and the youthful cravings to flee.Rom 1:241Th 4:52Ti 2:22
Is the broad word for the desires that war against the Spirit and pass away with the world: the desires of the flesh set against walking by the Spirit, and the world with its craving that is passing away.Gal 5:16Eph 2:31Jn 2:16
Both
Both stand in the same catalogue of sins to be put to death, each a form of disordered wanting the believer must mortify, with the greed named there as nothing less than idolatry.Col 3:5
Is fixed on getting MORE, the grasping for possessions and gain against which Jesus warns because a person's life does not consist in the abundance of what they own.Luk 12:15
Turns outward to exploit others for profit: a cloak the greedy hide behind, a grudging gift extorted rather than freely given, and false teachers who through this greed make merchandise of people.1Th 2:52Co 9:52Pe 2:3
names a craving that reaches out to possess something the person wants, whether an object, a pleasure, or a forbidden good; the drive is toward getting.Mrk 4:19Rom 7:71Jn 2:16
can be a wholesome, intense longing and is not always sinful; the word simply marks the direction and force of desire.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
Both
both appear in the New Testament lists of the traits that mark a life still ruled by sin, named among the things a believer is to put off.Tit 3:3Gal 5:21
names resentment fixed on another person because of what they have or are; it seeks to gain nothing but begrudges the other their advantage.Mat 27:18Mrk 15:10Php 1:15
is always a vice with no good use; it names a settled ill will that would see the other person diminished.Rom 1:291Ti 6:41Pe 2:1
epithumia in the other biblical languages
תַּאֲוָהHebrew“desire”the common Hebrew noun for a strong desire or craving, likewise good or bad by context; the Greek Old Testament regularly uses this word to translate it.
In the New Testament it slides toward a settled negative sense, so it often stands alone as "lust" or "evil desire," above all the appetites of the body set against God.Gal 5:161Pe 2:11Eph 2:3
It is pictured as a living force inside a person that conceives and gives birth to sin, which in turn brings forth death, so it names the inner engine of temptation.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15
Both
Both name the soul's intense longing, neutral in itself and taking its moral color from its object, so each turns to sin when fixed on what is forbidden.Num 11:4Rom 6:12
Both can carry a wholly good longing when the object is right, whether the desire God fulfills for a person or a holy yearning to be with the Lord.Psa 21:2Php 1:23
It is a keyword of the wisdom writings, weighing the longing of the righteous against that of the wicked and asking whether God grants or thwarts it.Pro 10:24Pro 11:23Pro 13:12
It anchors the wilderness story of craving meat, the place named "graves of craving," where Israel's appetite for food turned deadly.Num 11:4Psa 78:29Psa 106:14
חָמַדHebrew“to desire”the Hebrew verb behind "you shall not covet"; Paul cites that command with this word in Romans 7:7, so it stands close to the coveting sense of the craving.
In the New Testament this word usually names a craving the writers treat as an enemy. It stands in lists of things believers are told to put to death, it is said to wage war against a person, and it is named as what makes the world rot from the inside.Gal 5:24Col 3:51Pe 2:112Pe 1:4
It can be drawn as an active force with a life of its own. It baits a person, pulls him away, and gives birth to sin, and people are pictured as walking along behind their own cravings like followers.Jas 1:14Jas 1:152Pe 3:3Jud 1:16
It often names a settled pattern belonging to a whole way of life rather than one passing wish, so new believers are told that the cravings they lived by in their old ignorance are behind them now.Eph 4:221Pe 1:141Pe 4:2Tit 3:3
Both
Both name plain wanting, the pull toward something a person does not yet have and would act in order to get. Each is used of hunger for one particular meal.Deu 12:20Luk 22:15
Both put the wanting inside the person, in the heart or the appetite, rather than in the thing wanted. That shared ground is why the Greek word became the natural match for the Old Testament phrase "the desire of the soul", and why English Bibles print "desire" in both Testaments.Deu 12:15Deu 18:6Rom 1:24Eph 2:3
Both can name an appetite that has slipped its leash and turned shameful, a wanting that answers to nothing and that no one can turn back.Jer 2:242Pe 2:101Pe 2:11
This is the word the law uses to grant permission rather than to warn. Meat may be eaten whenever a person's appetite asks for it, and as much of it as the appetite wants, with no hint that the wanting is a fault.Deu 12:15Deu 12:20Deu 12:21
It names one concrete wish attached to a particular act, the kind a person says out loud: a Levite who wants with his whole heart to come and serve at the place God chooses, or an offer to hand over a fugitive whenever the king wishes it.Deu 18:61Sa 23:20
It can be God's own desire, the settled wish behind what he has decided to do.Hos 10:10
ἐπιθυμία can be a good and eager longing, not only a sinful craving: Jesus's deep longing to eat the Passover with his disciples, and Paul's longing to depart and be with Christ. The Hebrew word for greedy desire never carries this positive range.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
As the everyday New Testament word for desire, ἐπιθυμία covers the whole field of human appetite, from bodily hunger to the pull of riches and pleasure, and names the urge itself without in every case declaring it wicked.Mrk 4:19Eph 2:3
Both
Both name a strong craving that turns sinful when it reaches for what is forbidden or belongs to another, the greedy appetite Scripture warns against.Mic 7:3Rom 7:7
In its desire sense הַוָּה names the grasping greed of the wicked and the powerful reaching for what they want, the appetite that tramples others to be satisfied.Pro 10:3Pro 11:6
The same Hebrew word is chiefly a word for engulfing ruin and calamity, so even its craving sense carries the shadow of destruction. The Greek ἐπιθυμία has no such second life.Psa 5:9Psa 57:1
It names the appetite itself, something at work inside a person that can be obeyed or refused. Paul tells his readers not to let sin reign in them so that they obey its desires, and to walk by the Spirit so that they will not carry out what the flesh wants, and Peter tells them to hold off the cravings that make war on the soul.Rom 6:12Gal 5:161Pe 2:11
It has a life story: it lures a person off, it conceives and gives birth to sin, and in the end it passes away along with the world it belongs to. The Hebrew word never moves like this, because it rates an object rather than naming a force at work in someone.Jas 1:14Jas 1:151Jn 2:17
It becomes a shorthand for the whole pull of the old life, listed beside the flesh, the world, and the person someone used to be, so that a writer can name a way of living with this one word.Eph 2:3Eph 4:22Col 3:5Tit 3:3
Both
Where the Hebrew marks a thing as desirable, the Greek word for desire is the natural New Testament counterpart, and the two meet on what a person sees and wants on sight. Ezekiel calls the Assyrian officers "desirable young men", handsome in their uniforms and on horseback, and that look is what draws Oholah after them; John names "the desire of the eyes" as one of the currents running through the world.Ezk 23:61Jn 2:16
Both turn up where treasured things are taken away. Amos says the lovely vineyards will be planted and their wine never drunk, and Revelation says the fruit a soul craved is gone and will never be found again.Amo 5:11Rev 18:14
Neither word is an accusation on its own. Isaiah can call the Lord's own vineyard lovely, and Paul can speak of his longing to leave and be with Christ, so in both languages the loveliness or the longing takes its color from what is wanted.Isa 27:2Php 1:23
It describes the thing, not the wanting. It is a compliment hung on a noun: a lovely vineyard, pleasant fields, fine young men. It says that something is worth having and says nothing at all about anyone's appetite.Isa 27:2Isa 32:12Ezk 23:6
In Ezekiel it settles into a stock phrase for handsome soldiers, rendered "desirable young men", governors and officers riding horses. It rates the men themselves, not the woman who chases after them.Ezk 23:6Ezk 23:12Ezk 23:23
What it praises is what a whole nation prizes: its farmland, its vines, the foreign troops it wants on its side. It is a word for public treasure rather than for private craving.Isa 32:12Amo 5:11Ezk 23:23
Names the inner craving itself, and in the New Testament that craving is almost always a sinful one: the appetite of the flesh that pulls a person toward wrongdoing.Gal 5:161Pe 2:11Rom 6:12
Pictures desire as the seed of sin, the pull that conceives wrongdoing and grows into it.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15Rom 7:7
Even when the longing is good, it stays the wish or yearning felt by a person, not the thing that is wished for.Luk 22:15Php 1:231Th 2:17
Both
Both words can carry a strong, wholesome longing or the thing longed for, so neither is confined to illicit craving.Php 1:23Hag 2:7
Names the desirable thing rather than the feeling: precious treasures, costly vessels, and valued possessions that people prize.2Ch 32:272Ch 36:10Nam 2:9
Describes a land as prized and cherished, the pleasant land longed for as a home.Psa 106:24Jer 3:19Zec 7:14
Can settle on a person as the object of affection, marking someone as greatly treasured or beloved.Dan 9:23Dan 10:11Dan 10:19
Names the wanting itself rather than the thing wanted, an inner appetite you can watch at work: it lures a person, it takes hold, and it ends in sin and death.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15Rom 7:8
In most New Testament uses it is an accusation: the craving belongs to the old self and to the body that is passing away, and believers are told to stop obeying it and to put it to death.Gal 5:16Gal 5:24Eph 2:3Col 3:51Pe 2:11
It narrows readily to sexual craving, the appetite for a body that is not yours to have.Rom 1:241Th 4:52Pe 2:10
The same word can be a wholly good longing, so nothing in it settles the moral question until you see what it reaches for: Jesus longing to eat the Passover with his disciples, Paul longing to leave this life and be with Christ, Paul longing to see friends face to face again.Luk 22:15Php 1:231Th 2:17
Both
Both words fill out the phrase "the desire of the eyes", what a gaze keeps returning to and could not bear to lose. John lists it among the things of the world that pass away; Ezekiel hears it said of his own wife.1Jn 2:16Ezk 24:161Ki 20:6
Both can name the cherished things themselves at the moment a doomed city loses them, which is where the Greek word for craving comes closest to the Hebrew word for treasure: everything Babylon's heart wanted is gone from her, and the enemy has laid hands on all Jerusalem's precious things.Rev 18:14Lam 1:10Lam 1:11
Names the treasure and not the longing, something solid enough to be seized, hauled away, or burned: the finery of a king's palace, the vessels of the temple, the silver and gold carried off as spoil.1Ki 20:62Ch 36:19Jol 3:5
It covers people as readily as property: the wife whose death Ezekiel is told not to mourn, and the children a womb has borne.Ezk 24:16Ezk 24:21Ezk 24:25Hos 9:16
Every use is approving. The word certifies that what it names really is worth loving, whether a lover called "altogether lovely" or the ruined temple where Israel praised God, so it never carries a warning about wanting the thing.Sng 5:16Isa 64:11Hos 9:6
Names an appetite or craving for things and pleasures, most often a sinful one that has to be put to death.Rom 13:14Col 3:5Gal 5:24
Treated as a power working inside a person that pulls toward evil, the engine of temptation and sin.Jas 1:14Jas 1:15Rom 7:7
Can also be a wholly good longing, shown only by what it reaches for, such as Jesus longing to share the Passover or Paul longing to be with Christ.Luk 22:15Php 1:23
Both
Both name an intense desire strong enough to drive a person, the Greek word's core sense of craving lining up with the Hebrew word's yearning.Rom 7:8Gen 3:16
Names a desire that turns one party toward another person, a yearning aimed at someone rather than an appetite for an object or pleasure.Gen 3:16Sng 7:10
Can describe a drive to dominate or possess the other, as sin's urge to master Cain.Gen 4:7
What scholars say about epithumia
The standard lexica treat epithumia as formally neutral: a strong desire whose moral value is set by its object and context. BDAG divides the entries into a neutral or positive longing (Luke 22:15;Phil 1:23;1 Thess 2:17) and the far more frequent negative craving or lust. Louw and Nida likewise place the coveting and lust uses in one domain (25.20) and the positive longing in another (25.12). Büchsel in TDNT stresses that, while Greek philosophy could use the term neutrally, the New Testament writers, drawing on the Old Testament and Jewish tradition, employ it overwhelmingly for the desire of the flesh set against the will of God. Paul's use in Romans 7:7 to 8, echoing the tenth commandment, ties the word to the biblical prohibition of coveting.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἐπιθυμίαlexicon
Büchsel, F. "ἐπιθυμία κτλ." in TDNT, vol. 3, pp. 168-172theological-dictionary
Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT Based on Semantic Domains, §25.12, §25.20lexicon
H. Hübner, "ἐπιθυμία," in EDNT, vol. 2, pp. 27-30theological-dictionary