StrongerBible

epicheireō

ἐπιχειρέω

GreekG2021“undertake, attempt, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 1:1Act 9:29Act 19:13
Compound of
epiἐπίupon/to/against909G1909
cheirχείρhand180G5495
Word studyResearch-gradeeh-pee-khay-REH-ohverb

What epicheireō means

to set about doing something: to take a task in hand and try to carry it out

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

The word pictures someone putting a hand to a job and setting to work at it. At its core it simply means to take up a task and try to do it, and by itself it says nothing about whether the effort is good or bad, whether it succeeds or fails. That verdict comes entirely from the surrounding story.

In practice, though, the word tends to show up around bold, presumptuous, or doomed ventures. In the Greek Old Testament it is used again and again of enemies moving against God's people, and in everyday Greek documents it often introduces the wrongdoing a complaint is protesting. Both of its appearances in Acts describe attempts that collapse: men who keep trying to kill Paul, and would-be exorcists who end up beaten and humiliated. So while the plain sense is neutral, readers who knew their Greek Bible would have heard an undertone of a rash or ill-fated undertaking.

That undertone is exactly what makes the word interesting in Luke's opening line, where he says many have taken it in hand to write an account of Jesus. Read flatly, he is just noting that others have done the work he is now doing. But because he could have chosen a plainer word, some readers hear a gentle hint that those earlier accounts, while worthy, fell short of the careful, orderly record he means to provide.

Luk 1:1Act 9:29Act 19:13
Luk 1:1

Whether Luke's use of ἐπιχειρέω in the preface (Luke 1:1) carries an implied criticism of his predecessors' accounts or is a neutral term for taking up a task.

  • majorityNeutral: the verb is stock preface diction implying no censure, since Luke aligns himself with the same predecessors in the next clause (kagō, "it seemed good to me also") and honors the tradition they drew on.; H. J. Cadbury, "Commentary on the Preface of Luke," in The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, vol. 2 (1922); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX, Anchor Bible (1981); I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, NIGTC (1978)
  • minorityMildly critical: read against Greek scientific and historiographical prefaces, the third-person use of the verb of predecessors carries a gentle deflation, so Luke acknowledges earlier accounts while presenting his own careful, orderly record as the more secure alternative.; Loveday C. A. Alexander, The Preface to Luke's Gospel, SNTSMS 78 (Cambridge, 1993); John Peters, "The Genre of Luke's Preface and the Meaning of ἐπιχειρέω," Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 18 (2020)

What scholars say about epicheireō

The standard lexica agree on the gloss and locate any pejorative force in context rather than in the verb. BDAG (3rd ed., 386) treats all three New Testament occurrences under one head, "set one's hand to = undertake, try, attempt," attaching no negative label; Louw-Nida (68.60) glosses "undertake to do something, but without a necessary implication of success"; EDNT and LSJ concur, and Moulton-Milligan, surveying the papyri, issue the decisive verdict that "any idea of failure, though often suggested by the context, does not lie in the verb itself." The interpretive debate is therefore not about denotation but about connotation at Luke 1:1. The patristic reading (Origen, Hom. Luc. 1; followed by Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Eusebius HE 3.24.15) took the "many" to be inspiration-less or heterodox producers set against the canonical evangelists; that strong reading was dismantled by Plummer (ICC, 1896) and definitively by H. J. Cadbury ("Commentary on the Preface of Luke," Beginnings of Christianity II, 1922), who showed the verb to be stock preface diction and the self-inclusive kagō structurally incompatible with self-directed censure. Most modern commentators (Fitzmyer, Marshall, Bock, Nolland, Bovon, Green) follow Cadbury. Loveday Alexander (The Preface to Luke's Gospel, SNTSMS 78, 1993) revived a milder version: reading the preface against Greek scientific and technical prose (Hippocrates, De vetere medicina 1; Galen), she argues the third-person use of the verb of predecessors carries an unavoidable if gentle deflation, though the kagō signals a complementary relationship. Her scientific-preface framework was contested by Aune, Adams, Moles, Pitts, and Byrskog, who reassert a historiographical reading. John Peters (JSHJ 18, 2020) presses the Luke-internal pattern (both Acts uses describe failed attempts) plus Josephus's pejorative use of the verb of a rival historian (Vita 338) toward Alexander's mild critique. The Acts occurrences carry their negative colour from their objects (murder; unauthorized exorcism), which most scholars decline to read back onto Luke 1:1.

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., s.v. ἐπιχειρέωlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, §68.60lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἐπιχειρέωlexicon
  • Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Balz-Schneider), s.v. ἐπιχειρέωtheological-dictionary
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. ἐπιχειρέωlexicon
  • H. J. Cadbury, "Commentary on the Preface of Luke," in The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I, vol. 2 (1922)article
  • Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke, ICC (1896)commentary
  • Loveday C. A. Alexander, The Preface to Luke's Gospel, SNTSMS 78 (Cambridge, 1993)monograph
  • John Peters, "The Genre of Luke's Preface and the Meaning of ἐπιχειρέω," Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 18 (2020)article

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

All attested forms of ἐπιχειρέω

aorist active indicative 3p

ἐπεχείρησαν, Ἐπεχείρησαν

Luk 1:1, Act 19:13

imperfect active indicative 3p

ἐπεχείρουν

Act 9:29