StrongerBible

kenoō

κενόω

GreekG2758“emptied, made himself nothing, ...”

Appears 5 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Rom 4:141Co 1:171Co 9:152Co 9:3Php 2:7
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekeh-NOH-ohverb

What kenoō means

1

to drain something of its force, meaning, or validity; to nullify or make void

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The verb κενόω literally means "to make empty," and in ordinary Greek it drained containers, depopulated cities, and emptied armies onto a plain. It is built on the adjective κενός, "empty." Paul, though, never uses it of a physical thing. In every one of these four verses the object is an idea or a claim, and the verb strips it of its force or its truth.

In Romans 4:14 faith itself is "emptied" and the promise "made void" if the inheritance depends on keeping the law; here the word stands right beside καταργέω, the plainer term for cancelling something so it no longer works. In First Corinthians 1:17 Paul refuses polished rhetoric so that the cross is not "emptied" of its saving power. And twice he speaks of a boast being emptied: no one will drain his ground for pride of its substance (First Corinthians 9:15), and he sends helpers ahead so that his boast about the Corinthians will not "prove hollow" (Second Corinthians 9:3).

The common thread is a reality that looks solid being shown to have nothing behind it, or being robbed of whatever made it effective. The opposite move would be to fill something up, not to empty it.

Rom 4:141Co 1:171Co 9:152Co 9:3
2

to empty oneself; to make oneself nothing in an act of self-humbling

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

When Paul turns the word on Christ in Philippians 2:7, he uses it of Christ acting on himself: Christ "emptied himself." This is the single most argued word in the letter. The sentence does not stop there; it immediately says how he did it, "taking the form of a servant, being born in human likeness." On the reading most Philippians scholars now hold, those next words define the emptying: Christ emptied himself by becoming a servant, not by getting rid of some part of his deity.

That is why many translations render the phrase "made himself nothing." The picture is not subtraction but self-giving: the one who was equal with God chose the lowest place. The very next line completes the descent, where he ταπεινόω, humbled himself, all the way to death on a cross.

A long tradition tried to name what Christ emptied himself of, usually his divine powers. A smaller group hears behind the words the suffering servant of Isaiah, who "poured out his soul unto death" (ערה). Scholars still divide over which of these the word points to.

Php 2:7

Disputed

What Paul means when he says Christ "emptied himself" in Philippians 2:7, and whether the emptying implies the loss of anything.

  • majorityThe emptying is a metaphor for voluntary self-humbling, defined by the participles that follow: Christ emptied himself BY taking the form of a servant and being made in human likeness. Nothing is subtracted; the incarnation itself is the self-emptying, an addition of servanthood and lowered status rather than a divestment of divine attributes.; Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1991), 216-24; Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1995), 210-12; Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), 630-31; N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (T&T Clark, 1991), 56-98
  • minorityThe phrase echoes Isaiah 53:12, where the servant "poured out his soul unto death"; the self-emptying therefore culminates in the cross and denotes Christ's self-giving to death rather than the incarnation.; Joachim Jeremias, 'Zu Phil. 2,7: ΕΑΥΤΟΝ ΕΚΕΝΩΣΕΝ,' Novum Testamentum 6 (1963): 182-88; Albrecht Oepke, 'κενός κτλ.,' TDNT 3 (Eerdmans, 1965), 661
  • minorityChrist divested himself of divine attributes, or of their independent exercise, at the incarnation (the nineteenth-century kenotic reading and its modern descendants). Most current Philippians specialists judge this a theological construction rather than an exegesis of the verb, which Paul never uses elsewhere of literal loss.; Gottfried Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk (Erlangen, 1853-61), II:15; Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Zondervan, 1994), 549-52

What scholars say about kenoō

κενόω is a denominative verb from the adjective κενός ("empty"), meaning literally "to make empty," with πληρόω ("to fill") as its standard antonym; in Classical and Hellenistic Greek it is overwhelmingly literal (draining containers, depopulating places, medical evacuation), with a thinner metaphorical stream (Plato, Cercidas, Vettius Valens) that BDAG and Moulton-Milligan flag as the closest secular parallels to Paul. It occurs only twice in the Septuagint (Jeremiah 14:2; 15:9), both rendering Hebrew אָמַל ("to languish"), which Oepke (TDNT) and Silva (NIDNTTE) judge a marginal influence on Paul. All five Pauline occurrences are figurative: BDAG groups the four non-Philippians uses (Romans 4:14; 1 Corinthians 1:17; 9:15; 2 Corinthians 9:3) under "to cause to be without result or effect, nullify," and commentators (Moo, Thiselton, Fee, Harris) read them as draining faith, the cross, or a boast of its force. For Philippians 2:7 the dominant reading among current specialists (O'Brien, Fee, Silva, Bockmuehl, Hansen; grammatically, Wallace's participle of means) takes the following participles to define the emptying as self-humbling by incarnation rather than divestment of divine attributes, dissolving the nineteenth-century kenotic debate (Thomasius, Gess, Gore, Forsyth) that patristic authority (Chrysostom, Cyril, Augustine) and modern critics (Baillie, Barth, Martin) reject. A minority (Jeremias, Oepke, Cullmann) hears an echo of Isaiah 53:12, though the Septuagint does not use κενόω there; Louw-Nida and Hellerman instead stress status-reduction (domain 87.70).

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. (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000), 539, s.v. κενόωlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. κενόωlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), 340, s.v. κενόωlexicon
  • Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1989), sections 76.27 and 87.70lexicon
  • Albrecht Oepke, 'κενός κτλ.,' Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3 (Eerdmans, 1965), 659-62theological-dictionary
  • Moisés Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Zondervan, 2014), s.v. κενός/κενόωtheological-dictionary
  • Michael Lattke, 'κενόω,' Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 2 (Eerdmans, 1991), 281-82theological-dictionary
  • Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians ii. 5-11 in Recent Interpretation, rev. ed. (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), 169-96monograph
  • N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (T&T Clark, 1991), 56-98monograph
  • Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), 630-31grammar
  • Peter T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1991), 216-24commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1995), 210-12commentary
  • Moisés Silva, Philippians (BECNT), 2nd ed. (Baker, 2005), 105-06commentary
  • Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1996), 274-75commentary
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2000), 143-46, 693-95commentary
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 2005), 622-23commentary
  • Joachim Jeremias, 'Zu Phil. 2,7: ΕΑΥΤΟΝ ΕΚΕΝΩΣΕΝ,' Novum Testamentum 6 (1963): 182-88journal-article
  • Joseph H. Hellerman, Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi (SNTSMS 132; Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005)monograph

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

All attested forms of κενόω

aorist passive subjunctive 3s

κενωθῇ

1Co 1:17, 2Co 9:3

aorist active indicative 3s

ἐκένωσεν

Php 2:7

future active indicative 3s

κενώσει

1Co 9:15

perfect passive indicative 3s

κεκένωται

Rom 4:14