StrongerBible

ischus

ἰσχύς

GreekG2479“strength, might, ...”

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 12:30Mrk 12:33Luk 10:27Eph 1:19Eph 6:102Th 1:91Pe 4:112Pe 2:11Rev 5:12Rev 7:12
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeis-KHOOSnoun

What ischus means

strength a person or being simply has: might held in reserve, whether or not it is being used at the moment

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

Ancient Greek used this word for strength you could see and measure: the build of a wrestler, the toughness of iron, the weight of an army behind a wall. It is built on a verb meaning "to hold", and that is the picture behind it. This is strength a person holds, not strength being spent in a particular act.

The New Testament uses it only ten times, and nearly always of God. His strength is what raised Jesus, what believers are told to stand in, what the condemned are shut out from, and what the songs of heaven ascribe to him. Where a human being has this strength, it is either handed over by God for the work at hand or claimed by him outright, since the great command asks for love offered with all of it.

The word rarely travels alone. Writers stack it with the other Greek words for power, most often δύναμις and κράτος, producing phrases such as "the might of his strength". How much separate weight each word carries in a phrase like that is genuinely argued: the piling up may be there for sheer force of expression rather than to sort power into types.

Behind all of it lies an Old Testament refrain. Human strength is real, but it is never something to boast in, and the strong who trust it are exactly the ones who fall. That is why the word can magnify God in one verse and quietly humble a reader in the next.

Nuances

1aGod's own might: the overwhelming strength that belongs to him, shown in what he does and praised in worship
TranslatabilityPartial
Eph 1:19Eph 6:102Th 1:9Rev 5:12Rev 7:12
1bstrength that God supplies to a person for a task, so that the credit runs back to him
1Pe 4:11
1ca person's whole strength: everything one can bring to bear, as claimed by the command to love God
Mrk 12:30Mrk 12:33Luk 10:27
Mrk 12:30

Whether "strength" in the great commandment names bodily strength as one faculty alongside heart, soul, and mind, or contributes to a Hebrew expression for the whole person.

  • majorityThe heaped-up terms form a totality expression meaning the entire self, not a list of separable faculties, so this word adds intensity and reach rather than a distinct bodily component.; S. Dean McBride, "The Yoke of the Kingdom: An Exposition of Deuteronomy 6:4-5," Interpretation 27 (1973); William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (NICNT); Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testament
  • minorityThe terms name distinguishable aspects of the person, with this word marking bodily powers and physical effort.; James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (Pillar New Testament Commentary)
1dthe strength a created being has, measured against someone else's
2Pe 2:11

What scholars say about ischus

The standard lexica gloss ἰσχύς as "strength, might, power, ability", tracing it to ἴσχω (allied with ἔχω) and so to the notion of strength held or possessed; it is attested from Hesiod onward and leans in classical usage toward bodily, athletic, and military prowess. In the Septuagint it renders chiefly כֹּחַ, חַיִל, עֹז, and גְּבוּרָה, an overlap it shares with δύναμις. The classic synonym discrimination, deriving from J. H. H. Schmidt's synonymics and popularized through Thayer's note under δύναμις, sets ἰσχύς (strength as endowment, especially physical) against δύναμις (inherent ability), ἐνέργεια (operative power), ἐξουσία (authority), κράτος (manifested, relative might), and βία (violent force); Grundmann's TDNT article develops the same lines, aligning κράτος more closely with ἰσχύς than with δύναμις. Since James Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language (1961) and Moisés Silva's Biblical Words and Their Meaning, the linguistically-minded majority treats such fine discriminations with caution, warning against illegitimate totality transfer and reading the accumulations in Ephesians 1:19; 6:10 and the sevenfold acclamations of Revelation 5:12; 7:12 as rhetorical or liturgical pleonasm rather than a taxonomy of powers; Louw and Nida likewise group the power vocabulary in a single capability domain. Hoehner defends a layered reading of the Ephesian chains, while Lincoln, Best, and Schnackenburg favor accumulation; Arnold's Ephesians: Power and Magic argues the density of power vocabulary engages the magical milieu of Roman Asia, a thesis widely credited for its background work and contested for over-specifying a situation. On the Shema quotations, the Hebrew מְאֹד is not a strength word, the Old Greek rendered it δύναμις, and ἰσχύς is a first-century Synoptic choice; McBride's concentric analysis of Deuteronomy 6:5, Lane's observation that soul and mind double-translate נֶפֶשׁ, and the holistic anthropology of Wolff, Di Vito, and Green support the totality reading against a partitive faculties reading, and the rabbinic and Targumic glossing of מְאֹד as "possessions" tells against a narrowly physical sense. For the remaining occurrences, Achtemeier, Jobes, and Michaels read the God-supplied ἰσχύς of 1 Peter 4:11 as making service doxological; Wanamaker, Malherbe, and Fee note the Isaianic theophany background of 2 Thessalonians 1:9; Bauckham and Davids treat ἰσχύϊ καὶ δυνάμει in 2 Peter 2:11 as a redundant doublet; and Aune, Bauckham, Beale, and Koester read the sevenfold Revelation lists as expressing the fullness of praise, with Bauckham stressing their subversion of imperial acclamation.

Where scholars disagree about ischus

Whether this word carries a nuance of its own alongside the other Greek words for power, or whether the stacked power terms in Ephesians and Revelation are emphatic repetition.

  • majorityThe heaped-up terms are cumulative emphasis, and the fine discriminations among the Greek power words largely collapse in the Greek of this period, so each stacked word should not be assigned separate theological cargo.; James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford University Press, 1961); Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (rev. ed.); Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (Word Biblical Commentary 42); Ernest Best, Ephesians (International Critical Commentary)
  • minorityEach term retains a distinct nuance, with this word naming strength as an endowment one possesses, so the chained phrases deliberately layer real distinctions.; J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, synonym note under δύναμις; W. Grundmann, "ἰσχύω κτλ.," in G. Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3; Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary
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, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. ἰσχύςlexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. ἰσχύςlexicon
  • J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. ἰσχύς and the synonym note under δύναμιςlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 74lexicon
  • W. Grundmann, "ἰσχύω κτλ.," in G. Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3theological-dictionary
  • Moisés Silva (ed.), New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (2014)theological-dictionary
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford University Press, 1961)monograph
  • Moisés Silva, Biblical Words and Their Meaning: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (rev. ed.)monograph
  • Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (Word Biblical Commentary 42)commentary
  • Ernest Best, Ephesians (International Critical Commentary)commentary
  • Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentarycommentary
  • Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians: Power and Magic. The Concept of Power in Ephesians in Light of Its Historical Setting (Cambridge University Press, 1989)monograph
  • S. Dean McBride, "The Yoke of the Kingdom: An Exposition of Deuteronomy 6:4-5," Interpretation 27 (1973)article
  • William L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (NICNT)commentary
  • James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Mark (Pillar New Testament Commentary)commentary
  • Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old Testamentmonograph
  • Joel B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Lifemonograph
  • Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Hermeneia)commentary
  • Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)commentary
  • Charles A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians (New International Greek Testament Commentary)commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (NICNT)commentary
  • Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50)commentary
  • Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Pillar New Testament Commentary)commentary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation (Word Biblical Commentary 52A-C)commentary
  • Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge University Press, 1993)monograph
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (New International Greek Testament Commentary)commentary
  • Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart (eds.), Septuaginta, Deuteronomy 6:5critical-edition
  • John W. Wevers (ed.), Deuteronomium (Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum III/2, Göttingen, 1977)critical-edition
  • Mishnah, Berakhot 9:5rabbinic source

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

All attested forms of ἰσχύς

genitive f s

ἰσχύος

Mrk 12:30, Mrk 12:33, Eph 1:19, Eph 6:10, 2Th 1:9, 1Pe 4:11

dative f s

ἰσχύϊ

Luk 10:27, 2Pe 2:11

accusative f s

ἰσχὺν

Rev 5:12

nominative f s

ἰσχὺς

Rev 7:12