StrongerBible

kataraomai

καταράομαι

GreekG2672“curse, cursed”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 5:44Mat 25:41Mrk 11:21Luk 6:28Rom 12:14Jas 3:9
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studykah-tah-RAH-oh-myverb

What kataraomai means

to curse someone: to call down ruin on a person or thing, normally by invoking God against them, as the exact opposite of blessing them

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

To curse someone in the Bible is not to swear at them. It is to call for their ruin, normally by calling on God to bring it, so the words are expected to take effect rather than just vent anger. That is why the New Testament almost always sets this verb directly against blessing: to bless is to ask God for someone's good, and to curse is to ask God for their harm. In four of the six places the word appears, blessing stands beside it in the same sentence.

The commands that use it are pointed. Jesus tells his followers to bless the people who curse them (Luke 6:28), Paul repeats the instruction (Romans 12:14), and James protests that the same tongue praises God and then curses the people God made in his own likeness (James 3:9). What is forbidden in each case is not rudeness or bad language but the request that God bring an enemy down, which in the ancient world was an ordinary and even legal thing to ask for.

Twice the word describes a curse that has already taken hold. Peter points at the withered fig tree and calls it the one Jesus cursed (Mark 11:21), and in Matthew 25:41 the judge addresses the people on his left as those who stand under a curse. In these two places the focus has shifted from the asking to the result: the sentence has been passed and is now in force. The noun built on this verb (κατάρα) names that sentence and that condition, and a related adjective (ἐπικατάρατος) labels the person left standing under it.

It is a heavier thing than speaking abusively about someone (κακολογέω), which attacks a reputation, and it is not the same as placing a person or thing under a formal ban (ἀναθεματίζω), which hands the target over to God for destruction and often binds the speaker by oath as well.

Nuances

1ato call down harm on a person, set as the opposite of blessing them
Mat 5:44Luk 6:28Rom 12:14Jas 3:9
1bto pronounce a curse that actually takes hold on its target
Mrk 11:21
1cto be left standing under a curse already pronounced
Mat 25:41

What scholars say about kataraomai

καταράομαι is the verb of the ἀρά group intensified by κατά, and in Hellenistic usage it denotes the uttering of an imprecation against a person or object. BDAG gives a single sense, "to curse," listing the personal objects of Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:28, Romans 12:14 and James 3:9, the fig tree of Mark 11:21, and the perfect passive participle κατηραμένοι of Matthew 25:41, where the resultative force yields the sense "accursed"; LSJ and Louw-Nida (domain 33.470) recognize the same range. Büchsel's TDNT article on the ἀρά group traces the shift from the Greek assumption that the force of a curse lies in the uttered word to the biblical assumption that a curse takes effect because God enforces it, and notes that καταράομαι is the regular Septuagint rendering of both אָרַר and the intensive of קלל, including the promise of Genesis 12:3. On the blessing-for-cursing commands, Davies and Allison treat Matthew 5:44 as textually secondary, harmonized to Luke 6:27 to 28, a judgment Metzger's textual commentary shares; Moo reads Romans 12:14 as an echo of the same dominical tradition. France treats Mark 11:21 as Peter's characterization of Jesus' pronouncement, which the narrative frames as an enacted prophetic sign against fruitless Israel rather than as an act of temper. On Matthew 25:41 commentators observe that the participle stands without an agent, in contrast to the εὐλογημένοι τοῦ πατρός μου of verse 34, and read the asymmetry as deliberate. Kitz and Brichto supply the wider legal and cultic setting of curse formulas, in which such an utterance functions as a conditional sentence awaiting divine execution.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. καταράομαιlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. καταράομαιlexicon
  • Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (New York: United Bible Societies, 1989), domain 33.470lexicon
  • Friedrich Büchsel, "ἀρά, κατάρα, ἐπικατάρατος, καταράομαι," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 1dictionary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), on 5:43-48commentary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 3 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), on 25:31-46commentary
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), on Matthew 5:44commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), on 11:12-25commentary
  • Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), on 12:14commentary
  • Dan G. McCartney, James (BECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), on 3:9-12commentary
  • Anne Marie Kitz, Cursed Are You! The Phenomenology of Cursing in Cuneiform and Hebrew Texts (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2014)monograph
  • Herbert Chanan Brichto, The Problem of "Curse" in the Hebrew Bible (SBLMS 13; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1963)monograph

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

All attested forms of καταράομαι

present middle-or-passive participle accusative m p

καταρωμένους

Mat 5:44, Luk 6:28

aorist middle indicative 2s

κατηράσω

Mrk 11:21

perfect passive participle vocative m p

κατηραμένοι

Mat 25:41

present middle-or-passive imperative 2p

καταρᾶσθε

Rom 12:14

present middle-or-passive indicative 1p

καταρώμεθα

Jas 3:9