StrongerBible

eulogētos

εὐλογητός

GreekG2128“blessed, praise be to, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 14:61Luk 1:68Rom 1:25Rom 9:52Co 1:32Co 11:31Eph 1:31Pe 1:3
Root family
Word studyyoo-loh-gay-TOSSadj

What eulogētos means

worthy to be praised: said of God as the one people bless, not of a person who has been blessed

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

Greek had a whole family of words for speaking well of someone: the verb "to bless" (εὐλογέω), the noun "a blessing" (εὐλογία), and this adjective. The adjective is the one that faces upward. It does not describe someone who has been done good; it describes the one whose goodness deserves an answer of praise.

That direction is what English blurs. When the New Testament calls a person "blessed" in the sense of having received God's favor, it uses a form of the verb, as in the welcome "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." When it says that a person's whole situation is enviable, it reaches for a different word again (μακάριος). This adjective is kept for God: all eight of its appearances have God as their subject, and the one disputed line, Romans 9:5, is disputed precisely because it may stretch the word to cover Christ.

The word arrives in Christian writing already shaped by Jewish prayer, where a blessing opened with "Blessed be the LORD" (the Hebrew בָּרַךְ family). Zechariah's song, Paul, and Peter all reach for that opening, and a letter can also let the same phrase trail after any mention of God, "who is blessed forever, amen." In Mark's account of Jesus before the high priest the adjective goes one step further and stands on its own as a name, "the Son of the Blessed One," a way of pointing at God without pronouncing his name.

Nuances

1athe opening cry of a prayer of praise: "Blessed be God," followed by what he has done
Luk 1:682Co 1:3Eph 1:31Pe 1:3
1bpraise stated about God inside a sentence: "who is blessed forever"
Rom 1:25Rom 9:52Co 11:31
Rom 9:5

Whether the praise in Romans 9:5 is predicated of Christ, naming him as God who is blessed forever, or forms a separate ascription of praise to God the Father.

  • majorityThe clause belongs with the preceding words about Christ, so Paul calls Christ God, blessed forever. The decisive point is that the adjective follows the noun instead of standing first, which is not how an independent blessing formula runs in Greek.; Bruce M. Metzger, "The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5," in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 95-112; Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992); C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, ICC, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975-1979), 2:464-470
  • minorityA full stop should be placed before the clause, making it an independent doxology to God the Father, on the ground that Paul nowhere else calls Jesus God outright.; Ezra Abbot, "On the Construction of Romans ix. 5," Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis 1 (1881)
1c"the Blessed One": the word standing alone as a reverent way of saying God without using his name
Mrk 14:61

What scholars say about eulogētos

The adjective is verbal in force, "worthy of blessing," and in the Septuagint it renders the Hebrew passive participle בָּרוּךְ predominantly where God is the one blessed, while εὐλογημένος, the perfect passive participle of εὐλογέω, carries the sense where a human being is the one blessed. BDAG and Beyer's TDNT article both record this division of labor, noting that the Septuagint keeps it less consistently than the New Testament, where all eight occurrences have God as their subject. Deichgräber's form-critical study places Luke 1:68, 2 Corinthians 1:3, Ephesians 1:3 and 1 Peter 1:3 in the berakah pattern inherited from synagogue prayer, in which the predicate adjective stands first and is followed by a relative or participial clause naming the acts for which God is praised; Romans 1:25 and 2 Corinthians 11:31 show the looser appended form, in which the same phrase trails a mention of God. Word order is the crux of Romans 9:5: because the adjective there follows θεός rather than preceding it, Metzger, Cranfield and Harris argue that the clause cannot be read as an independent doxology and must be predicated of the Christ named just before, whereas Abbot's classic study defends the older punctuation that makes it a separate ascription of praise to God the Father. The substantival use in Mark 14:61, "the Son of the Blessed One," reflects the Jewish practice of reverential circumlocution for the divine name and is well attested in rabbinic usage.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. εὐλογητόςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. εὐλογητόςlexicon
  • Hermann W. Beyer, "εὐλογέω, εὐλογητός, εὐλογία," TDNT 1:754-765theological-dictionary
  • Reinhard Deichgräber, Gotteshymnus und Christushymnus in der frühen Christenheit, SUNT 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967)monograph
  • Bruce M. Metzger, "The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5," in Christ and Spirit in the New Testament, ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 95-112article
  • Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992)monograph
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, ICC, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975-1979)commentary

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

All attested forms of εὐλογητός

nominative m s

εὐλογητὸς, Εὐλογητὸς

Luk 1:68, Rom 1:25, Rom 9:5, 2Co 11:31, 2Co 1:3, Eph 1:3, 1Pe 1:3

genitive m s

εὐλογητοῦ

Mrk 14:61