StrongerBible

leipō

λείπω

GreekG3007lack, wanting, ...

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Luk 18:22Tit 1:5Tit 3:13Jas 1:4Jas 1:5Jas 2:15
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyLAY-pohverb

What leipō means

to be missing: for something needed to be absent, so that a person, a supply, or a piece of work falls short of complete

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the plain Greek word for something not being there when it should be. It is not about wishing or craving; it measures a gap. A whole is in view, the parts are counted, and one of them is not on the list. The things it says are missing are strikingly varied:

  • one last thing in a wealthy man's otherwise blameless life
  • the wisdom a believer needs and can simply ask God for
  • clothing and a day's food for a brother or sister in the church
  • travel supplies for two men being sent on their way
  • the unfinished church business Titus was left behind to put right

Greek can state the shortfall from either end, and both ways of saying it turn up here. Jesus tells a rich ruler that one thing is still missing from him, and Paul asks that two travelers be sent off with nothing missing. James flips it around and makes the needy person the subject: the believer who is short of wisdom, the brother or sister who is short of the day's food, the mature Christian who is short of nothing at all. English collapses both into "lack," so in a translation the two look identical.

Titus 1:5 stretches the word one step further. Paul says he left Titus behind on Crete, using a related verb (ἀπολείπω), so that Titus could set right "the things lacking" there. Nothing has gone missing from a shelf. What is missing is finished work: elders not yet appointed, matters not yet settled.

The nearest Greek neighbor is ὑστερέω, which pictures falling behind, coming up short of a mark or of other people. Mark tells the story of the rich ruler with that verb where Luke uses this one. This word is quieter. It draws no race and sets no standard, and only reports that a needed item is not there.

Nuances

1asomething a person needs is not there, with the missing item itself in view
Luk 18:22Tit 3:13
1ba person is short of something they need, whether food and clothing or wisdom
Jas 1:4Jas 1:5Jas 2:15
1cthe parts of a job still left undone: outstanding business rather than a person in need
TranslatabilityPartial
Tit 1:5

What scholars say about leipō

BDAG treats λείπω as a single lexeme with two syntactic patterns: the active, used intransitively of the thing that is missing (Luke 18:22, ἓν σοι λείπει; Titus 3:13, ἵνα μηδὲν αὐτοῖς λείπῃ), and the middle or passive, used of the person who is short of something, with the thing lacking in the genitive (James 1:5, λείπεται σοφίας; James 2:15, λειπόμενοι τῆς ἐφημέρου τροφῆς) or in a prepositional phrase (James 1:4, ἐν μηδενὶ λειπόμενοι). LSJ documents the older and much broader classical range, in which the simplex regularly means to leave, quit, or forsake, with the passive meaning to be left behind or to be inferior; that transitive "leave" sense survives in the New Testament only in the compounds ἀπολείπω, καταλείπω, ἐγκαταλείπω, and ἐκλείπω, never in the simplex, which the papyri of Moulton and Milligan likewise show settled into the ordinary sense of falling short or being deficient. On Titus 1:5, τὰ λείποντα is generally taken as the deficiencies in the Cretan congregations that Titus is to set straight, an interpretation Marshall and Quinn both defend and which the following ἐπιδιορθώσῃ ("put right in addition") supports; the paronomasia with the preceding ἀπέλιπόν σε is widely noted. On James, Davids and Allison observe that the letter's use of the verb belongs to its language of τέλειος and ὁλόκληρος wholeness, so that λειπόμενοι in 1:4 marks the absence of any deficient part rather than moral flawlessness, while 2:15 uses the same participle of concrete material want. The Synoptic parallel is instructive for the word's semantic neighborhood: Luke 18:22 has λείπει where Mark 10:21 has ὑστερεῖ and Matthew 19:20 has ὑστερῶ, indicating substantial overlap with ὑστερέω in Koine usage even though the two verbs image the shortfall differently.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. λείπωlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. λείπωlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930), s.v. λείπωlexicon
  • I. H. Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 152-56commentary
  • J. D. Quinn, The Letter to Titus, AB 35 (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 81-85commentary
  • P. H. Davids, The Epistle of James, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 69-73commentary
  • D. C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James, ICC (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 155-63commentary

All attested forms of λείπω

present middle participle nominative m p

λειπόμενοι

Jas 1:4, Jas 2:15

present active indicative 3s

λείπει

Luk 18:22

present active participle accusative n p

λείποντα

Tit 1:5

present active subjunctive 3s

λείπῃ

Tit 3:13

present middle indicative 3s

λείπεται

Jas 1:5