StrongerBible

katechō

κατέχω

GreekG2722“hold fast, suppress, ...”

Appears 18 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 4:42Luk 8:15Luk 14:9Jhn 5:4Act 27:40Rom 1:18Rom 7:61Co 7:301Co 11:21Co 15:22Co 6:101Th 5:212Th 2:62Th 2:7Phm 1:13Heb 3:6Heb 3:14Heb 10:23
Compound of
kataκατάaccording to484G2596
echōἔχωto have/be716G2192
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradeka-TEH-khoverb

What katechō means

1

to hold fast: to keep a firm, lasting grip on something you have received, so that you do not let it slip

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the warm, positive side of the word. It is built from the ordinary verb for "have" or "hold," with a prefix that presses the idea harder, so it means not just having something but keeping a steady, committed grip on it over time.

In the New Testament this is the language of holding on to what has been handed down: a teaching, a message, a standard, a hope. Paul pairs "hand over" and "hold fast" as a matched set, one for the passing on of the faith and the other for the receiving and keeping of it. The letter to the Hebrews turns the same word into a call to stay the course, gripping your confidence in Christ all the way to the end.

The stress is always on firmness and endurance. To hold fast is not to grab once but to keep holding, refusing to loosen your hold when it would be easier to let go.

Nuances

1ato hold fast to a teaching, message, or standard you have received
Luk 8:151Co 11:21Co 15:21Th 5:21
1bto hold firmly to your confidence and hope in Christ, staying the course to the end
Heb 3:6Heb 3:14Heb 10:23
2

to hold back: to keep a person or force in check, confined, or held down, whether by restraining it or by being caught in its grip

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This is the darker, downward side of the word. The same prefix that can mean "firmly" can also mean "down" or "against," and here it turns "hold" into "hold down." The result covers everything from politely keeping a guest from leaving to forcibly suppressing the truth.

Because the pressure can run in either direction, the word appears both actively and passively. Actively, a crowd detains Jesus, human beings press the truth down under their wrongdoing, and some mysterious power holds back the coming rebel. Passively, a person is held captive by the law or gripped by an illness they cannot shake.

Two of these verses are among the most argued-over sentences in the New Testament: Paul's charge that people suppress the truth, and his cryptic remark about what or who is restraining the man of lawlessness. In both, the exact force of the word is part of what is being debated.

Nuances

2ato detain someone, keeping them from leaving
Luk 4:42Phm 1:13
2bto suppress or hold down the truth
Rom 1:18
Rom 1:18

Whether Paul means that people actively suppress the truth or merely hold and possess it while living in unrighteousness.

  • majorityThe word means suppress or hold down: humanity actively hinders the truth by its wrongdoing, matching the picture in the following verses of people exchanging God's truth for a lie.; C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC, 1975), 1:111-112; D. J. Moo, Romans (NICNT, 1996), 102-103; J. A. Fitzmyer, Romans (Anchor Bible, 1993), 277-278
  • minorityThe word means hold or possess: people hold the truth but in a state of unrighteousness, an older reading now held by few.; W. Sanday and A. C. Headlam, Romans (ICC, 1902); J. Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT, 1959), 1:36-37
2cto restrain or hold back the coming man of lawlessness
2Th 2:62Th 2:7
2Th 2:7

Whether the word here means transitively "restrain" (a person holds the man of lawlessness back) or intransitively "hold sway, prevail" (the participle names a hostile power itself), and, on the restrainer reading, who is meant.

  • majorityIt means restrain: a person or power holds the man of lawlessness back until the appointed time. Candidates offered for the restrainer include the state and its order, the preaching of the gospel, and the archangel Michael.; F. W. Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (BDAG), 3rd ed. (2000), s.v.; C. R. Nicholl, From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica (SNTSMS 126; Cambridge, 2004), 225-249; F. F. Bruce, 1 & 2 Thessalonians (WBC, 1982), 170, 188
  • minorityIt means hold sway or seize: the word is read without an object, naming the prevailing hostile power itself rather than a benign restrainer.; C. H. Giblin, The Threat to Faith (Analecta Biblica 31; Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967); D. Robinson, Studia Evangelica III (TU 88; Berlin, 1964)
  • contestedThe reference is left deliberately vague, a veiled apocalyptic image not meant to be pinned to any one figure.; W. Trilling, Der zweite Brief an die Thessalonicher (EKKNT, 1980); A. J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians (Anchor Bible, 2000), 431-434
2dto be held captive or bound (in the passive)
Rom 7:6
2eto be gripped by an illness (in the passive)
Jhn 5:4
3

to have and hold as your own: to possess or occupy something, keeping settled title to it

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In this use the word means holding something not to keep it from slipping away but simply as its owner or occupant. It can describe taking a seat or a place, or possessing property and goods.

Paul plays on this sense in two striking paradoxes. He tells the Corinthians to live as though they do not possess what they buy, holding their belongings loosely because the present order is passing. And he describes himself as a man who owns nothing yet holds title to everything, rich in God while poor in the world's eyes.

The force here is a firm, settled hold rather than a casual having, which is why English often reaches for "possess" or "occupy" rather than a plain "have."

Nuances

3ato take or occupy a place or position
Luk 14:9
3bto possess, holding title to something
1Co 7:302Co 6:10
4

to make for shore: to steer a ship toward land and head in to the beach

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a specialized sailing use of the word, where holding a course means steering the ship toward a chosen point on the coast.

It appears once, in the storm-and-shipwreck story near the end of Acts, where the crew casts off and heads the vessel for the beach. Commentators point to it as one small sign of how accurately the account handles the vocabulary of ancient seamanship.

Act 27:40

What scholars say about katechō

The standard lexica agree that κατέχω attests a wide but organized family of senses rather than a single core. BDAG groups the NT occurrences under four heads: (1) hold back, hinder, detain, confine (Luke 4:42; Phlm 13; Rom 1:18; 7:6; 2 Thess 2:6-7); (2) hold fast, retain, a perfective of ἔχω applied to tradition and confession (Luke 8:15; 1 Cor 11:2; 15:2; 1 Thess 5:21; Heb 3:6, 14; 10:23); (3) possess, occupy (Luke 14:9; 1 Cor 7:30; 2 Cor 6:10); and (4) the intransitive nautical "put in, make for shore" (Acts 27:40). LSJ organizes the classical evidence similarly and adds a distinct intransitive block including B.3 "prevail, hold sway." Hanse (TDNT II.829) explains the range by κατά, which either intensifies ἔχω ("hold firmly, possess") or reorients it downward ("hold down, restrain, suppress"), neither being more primitive. Moulton-Milligan document the everyday first-century uses (legal possession, arrest, detaining a visitor, being held by promise, debt, or disease), and the last parallels the John 5:4 variant, itself absent from the earliest witnesses (Metzger). In the LXX κατέχω renders mainly חזק (Hiphil, hold fast), עצר (restrain), אחז (grasp), ירש (possess), and תמך (uphold), and the wisdom idiom of holding fast to instruction stands behind Paul's paraenesis. Two passages remain lexically consequential: at Rom 1:18 the near-consensus of critical commentators (Cranfield, Dunn, Moo, Jewett, Fitzmyer, Schreiner) reads "suppress" on contextual grounds, against an older "hold/possess" reading (Sanday-Headlam, Murray); at 2 Thess 2:6-7 no consensus exists on either the sense or the referent of τὸ κατέχον / ὁ κατέχων, with a traditional transitive "restrain" reading (Rome, gospel, or Michael as candidates: Bruce, Cullmann, Nicholl, Weima), a minority intransitive "hold sway / seizing power" reading (Giblin, Robinson, Krodel), and a substantial school treating the reference as deliberately veiled apocalyptic diction (Trilling, Metzger, Malherbe). Wanamaker, Best, and Fee canvass the options and decline to decide.

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

  • F. W. Danker (ed.), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), 3rd ed. (University of Chicago, 2000), s.v. κατέχωlexicon
  • H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ), 9th ed. with Supplement (Oxford, 1996), s.v. κατέχωlexicon
  • Hermann Hanse, “ἔχω, κατέχω,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) II (Eerdmans, 1964), 816-832dictionary
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1989)lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), 336lexicon
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC, 1975), 1:111-112commentary
  • D. J. Moo, Romans (NICNT, 1996), 102-103commentary
  • C. R. Nicholl, From Hope to Despair in Thessalonica (SNTSMS 126; Cambridge, 2004), 225-249monograph
  • C. H. Giblin, The Threat to Faith: An Exegetical and Theological Re-Examination of 2 Thessalonians 2 (Analecta Biblica 31; Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1967)monograph
  • P. Metzger, Katechon: II Thess 2,1-12 im Horizont apokalyptischen Denkens (BZNW 135; De Gruyter, 2005)monograph
  • C. A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians (NIGTC, 1990), 249-252commentary
  • B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1994), 178-179reference

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

All attested forms of κατέχω

imperfect active indicative 3p

κατεῖχον

Luk 4:42, Act 27:40

present active indicative 2p

κατέχετε

1Co 11:2, 1Co 15:2

present active infinitive

κατέχειν

Luk 14:9, Phm 1:13

present active participle nominative m p

κατέχοντες

1Co 7:30, 2Co 6:10

second-aorist active subjunctive 1p

κατάσχωμεν

Heb 3:6, Heb 3:14

imperfect passive indicative 1p

κατειχόμεθα

Rom 7:6

imperfect passive indicative 3s

κατειχετο

Jhn 5:4

present active imperative 2p

κατέχετε

1Th 5:21

present active indicative 3p

κατέχουσιν

Luk 8:15

present active participle accusative n s

κατέχον

2Th 2:6

present active participle genitive m p

κατεχόντων

Rom 1:18

present active participle nominative m s

κατέχων

2Th 2:7

present active subjunctive 1p

κατέχωμεν

Heb 10:23