to be patient and long-tempered: to hold back anger toward a wrongdoer, or to keep waiting in hope for something delayed, rather than retaliate or give up
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong
At its core this word means to be long-tempered, the opposite of being quick to flare up. Its center of gravity is holding back anger you would have every right to feel: giving someone who has provoked or wronged you room and time instead of striking back. That is why a debtor on his knees begs his master to be patient with him, and why love, in Paul's famous description, is patient first of all.
The same word also stretches to cover patient waiting for something that is slow to arrive. Abraham waited years for the promised son; a farmer waits through the seasons for the harvest. The thread joining both sides of the word is a refusal to force a premature end: you neither lash out nor lose heart, but hold steady until the right time comes.
Its weightiest use is of God. The Lord holds back the judgment people deserve, deferring his anger so there is still time to turn back to him. This is the quality older Bibles call being longsuffering, and it runs straight back to the way God describes himself in the Old Testament as slow to anger. The New Testament goes a step further and credits the same patience to Jesus.
Nuances
1ato bear with someone who provokes or wrongs you: to hold your anger and not retaliate, whether the one showing patience is a person or God restraining his wrath
Mat 18:26Mat 18:291Co 13:41Th 5:142Pe 3:9
1bto wait in patient hope for something slow but certain to arrive
Heb 6:15Jas 5:7 (2×)Jas 5:8
1ca contested use found only here: read either as God being patient toward people, or as God delaying to act on their behalf
Luk 18:7*
Luk 18:7
How to read the verb in Luke 18:7 ("and he is patient toward them"): whether it means God delays in acting, or keeps its ordinary sense of being patient, and toward whom "them" points.
majorityIt means God delays long before vindicating, so the clause asks whether he is slow to help his own people. This reading dominates modern English translations.; BDAG, s.v. μακροθυμέω; I.H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, NIGTC (1978), 672-73; F. Bovon, Luke 2, Hermeneia (2013), 537
minorityIt keeps the ordinary sense of being patient or forbearing; any idea of delay comes from the surrounding story, not from the word, since the lexical evidence for a delaying sense is lacking.; C.S. Riley, 'μακροθυμεῖν in Ben Sira 35:19 and Luke 18:7', NovT 51.3 (2009): 296-301; J.A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, AB (1985), 1178-79
minorityThe clause is a rhetorical question expecting the answer no: God will not delay but will vindicate speedily, as the next verse says.; J. Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34, WBC 35B (1993), 870; D.L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53, BECNT (1996), 1449-52
in some passages the word is about waiting in hope for a delayed but sure outcome, like a farmer waiting for the harvestJas 5:7
Both
both describe steady patience while an outcome is delayedHeb 6:15
Only wait patiently
this rendering misses the other, more common side of the word: holding back anger toward people
“have patience”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How makrothumeō differs from similar Greek words
ὑπομένωendurance that bears up under hard circumstances and stays put, whereas being patient here is mainly about holding back anger toward people who provoke you
Describes holding back anger toward a person who has wronged you or owes you, giving them more time instead of striking out.Mat 18:26Mat 18:291Th 5:14
Names the patient waiting through a long delay for something promised, whether a farmer waiting on his crop or God withholding judgment to give people time.Jas 5:72Pe 3:9Luk 18:7
Both
Both are virtues believers are urged to show as they wait for the Lord's return, and James sets them side by side in the same passage.Jas 5:8Jas 5:11
Both point to a long, drawn-out steadfastness that finally lays hold of a promised reward.Heb 6:152Ti 2:12
Means bearing up under suffering and persecution without giving up, staying firm to the very end of the ordeal.Mat 10:221Pe 2:20Jas 1:12
Keeps a plain physical sense of staying put or remaining behind in a place while others move on.Luk 2:43Act 17:14
ἀνέχωputting up with or tolerating someone in the moment, whereas being patient here is a sustained, long-tempered restraint rather than a single act of toleration
Names holding back deserved anger or judgment, giving an offender or debtor more time instead of striking at once.Mat 18:26Mat 18:292Pe 3:9
Carries a forward-looking wait: enduring a long delay in steady confidence that the promised outcome will still come, the way a farmer waits for his crop.Jas 5:7Heb 6:15Jas 5:8
Both
Both describe the patient forbearance believers owe one another, putting up with and staying patient toward fellow people.Eph 4:21Th 5:14
Names putting up with something you find objectionable and holding yourself under it: folly, false teachers, or teaching you know to be wrong. The word always takes an object you must tolerate.2Co 11:12Co 11:42Ti 4:3
Can carry a note of weary toleration of what should not have to be borne at all, as when Jesus asks how long he must put up with an unbelieving generation.Mat 17:17Mrk 9:19Luk 9:41
makrothumeō in the other biblical languages
אָרֵךְHebrew“slow”the Hebrew word for slow in the phrase "slow to anger" (literally "long of nose"), the very idiom this Greek word was coined to translate when describing God
is an active verb of waiting and enduring, holding out over time toward a hoped-for outcome, like the farmer who waits for his crop or Abraham who kept waiting until he received the promiseJas 5:7Heb 6:15
describes bearing patiently with other people and their failings, the plea to be given more time by someone owed and the command to be patient toward everyoneMat 18:261Th 5:14
Both
both express God holding back his anger toward sinners and giving them time; the Hebrew word names God as slow to anger in his own self-description, and the Greek word carries that same idea into the New Testament, where God is patient and unwilling that any should perish (the Greek term for being long-tempered is the standard way the older idiom of being slow to anger was carried over into Greek)Exo 34:6Jon 4:22Pe 3:9Luk 18:7
at root simply means long, and can describe physical length with nothing to do with temper, as of the eagle with its long wing-feathersEzk 17:3
names a settled temperament, the kind of person who is slow to anger, praised in the wisdom writings and set against the quick-tempered and hastyPro 14:29Pro 16:32
Names a person's patience toward others: bearing with people who wrong or owe you, without hitting back or forcing the matter.Mat 18:26Mat 18:291Th 5:14
Names waiting patiently for a promise to come true, holding on over a long delay rather than giving up.Heb 6:15Jas 5:7Jas 5:8
Both
Both build the idea of patience out of the picture of length: holding a response back over a long stretch rather than reacting at once. The Greek word is literally long in temper; the Hebrew reaches the same idea when it makes someone slow to anger.Pro 19:112Pe 3:9
Chiefly means to make life and time longer: the recurring promise that obedience will lengthen a person's days on the land.Exo 20:12Deu 5:161Ki 3:14
Covers plain physical or stretched-out length, something drawn long in space or in time, with no thought of patience at all.Ezk 31:5Isa 54:2Gen 26:8
What scholars say about makrothumeō
The verb belongs to a word-group (with the adjective μακρόθυμος and the noun μακροθυμία) that is thinly attested in classical Greek and was given its distinctive religious sense in the Septuagint, where μακρόθυμος renders the Hebrew idiom אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם, "long of nose/anger" (slow to anger), in the divine self-revelation of Exodus 34:6 and its echoes. BDAG divides the New Testament verb into three: (1) to bear up under provocation and restrain anger toward persons (Matt 18:26, 29; 1 Cor 13:4;1 Thess 5:14;2 Pet 3:9); (2) to wait patiently for a delayed outcome (Heb 6:15;Jas 5:7-8); and (3) a disputed "delay" sense proposed for Luke 18:7 alone. Trench's classic synonymic distinction, that μακροθυμία is patience toward persons and ὑπομονή patience toward things, and that only the former is predicated of God, captures a real tendency but has been shown to be a tendency rather than a rule, since Heb 6:15 and Jas 5:7-8 use the verb of waiting under circumstances and Col 1:11 pairs the two nouns without felt difference; Barr, Silva, Carson, and Thiselton have pressed this methodological point. On Luke 18:7, Riley (NovT 2009) argues from Sir 35:19 that a "delay" sense is lexically unsupported, throwing the interpretive weight onto the referent of the pronoun.
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, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. μακροθυμέωlexicon
J. Horst, 'μακροθυμία κτλ.', TDNT IV (1967), 374-387reference
R.C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, section liiireference
C.S. Riley, 'μακροθυμεῖν in Ben Sira 35:19 and Luke 18:7: A Lexicographical Note', NovT 51.3 (2009): 296-301article