StrongerBible

metochē

μετοχή

GreekG3352“partnership, fellowship, ...”

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2Co 6:14
Root family
Word studyResearch-grademeh-tokh-AYnoun

What metochē means

a share in common: the stake two parties both hold in one and the same thing

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This word shows up once in the whole New Testament. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul asks what share righteousness has with lawlessness. It is not a real question: the expected answer is none, and the point behind it is that none is even possible.

The noun is rare, but the idea behind it was completely ordinary. It is built on a common verb meaning "to have a part in something" (μετέχω), and everyday Greek business papers use the noun for a share in a piece of property or a partnership in a venture. Treaties use it for two cities holding all things in common. So the question carries the force of asking what business these two could possibly do together, what stake either could ever hold in the other.

The verse opens a run of five questions, each pairing two things that cannot be joined, and each reaching for a different word for having something in common:

  • this word, a share held jointly, pairing righteousness with lawlessness
  • fellowship (κοινωνία), pairing light with darkness
  • accord (συμφώνησις), pairing Christ with the figure Paul calls Belial
  • the portion that falls to a person (μερίς), pairing a believer with an unbeliever
  • going along with something (συγκατάθεσις), pairing the temple of God with idols

Most scholars read the five as near-synonyms varied for the force of the writing rather than as five finely calibrated terms. Where a shade is drawn between the first two, it is that fellowship leans toward the relationship itself while this word leans toward the stake that any partnership assumes.

The word also has a quiet Old Testament connection. The Greek Old Testament uses it for Jerusalem being knit together as a city (Psalm 122:3), translating a Hebrew verb for being joined or allied (חָבַר), and its close relative for a partner regularly stood in for the Hebrew word for a companion (חָבֵר). That zone of being joined to someone fits the paragraph exactly, since Paul opens it with the picture of two mismatched animals harnessed under a single yoke.

2Co 6:14
2Co 6:14

What concrete association the μετοχή of 2 Corinthians 6:14 forbids, i.e. the referent of the ἄπιστοι with whom the readers are not to be ἑτεροζυγοῦντες. William Webb catalogues at least twelve proposals, ranging from Qumran-style total separation through litigation before pagan courts to mixed marriage; virtually all commentators exclude ordinary social contact, since 1 Corinthians 5:9-10 rules that out explicitly.

  • contestedThe forbidden sharing is cultic: participation in pagan temple meals and idolatry, the same problem addressed in 1 Corinthians 8-10, supported by the temple imagery of 2 Corinthians 6:16 and by the parallel use of μετέχω at 1 Corinthians 10:21 for the table of the Lord over against the table of demons.; Gordon D. Fee, "II Corinthians vi.14-vii.1 and Food Offered to Idols," New Testament Studies 23 (1977): 140-161
  • contestedThe ἄπιστοι embrace not only idol-worshipping outsiders but Paul's Judean opponents in Corinth, the rival apostles of chapters 10-13 who advocate a different gospel, so the forbidden partnership is with them.; Philip F. Esler, "Paul's Explanation of Christ-Movement Identity in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1: A Social Identity Approach," Biblical Theology Bulletin 51.2 (2021): 101-118; Novum Testamentum 55.1 (2013): 45-60, on the identity of the ἄπιστοι in 2 Corinthians 6:14
2Co 6:14

Whether 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1, the paragraph in which this noun stands, is Pauline. Its light/darkness and righteousness/lawlessness dualisms, the name Βελιάρ, the temple imagery, and its concentration of New Testament hapax legomena (μετοχή, συμφώνησις, συγκατάθεσις, ἑτεροζυγέω, μολυσμός) are the central evidence urged on the interpolation side; the lexical oddity of μετοχή is one plank of that stylistic argument.

  • majorityPaul wrote the paragraph. The vocabulary argument is weak: the cognate verb μετέχω occurs five times in Paul, the demand for five parallel rhetorical questions itself drives the search for rarer synonyms, 2 Corinthians carries roughly fifty words found nowhere else in the New Testament, and 7:2-4 resumes 6:11-13 in a way that presupposes an intervening unit.; Margaret E. Thrall, "The Problem of II Cor. vi.14-vii.1 in Some Recent Discussion," New Testament Studies 24 (1978): 132-148; William J. Webb, Returning Home: New Covenant and Second Exodus as the Context for 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1, JSNTSup 85 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993); Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005)
  • minorityThe paragraph is an interpolation of Jewish, probably Qumran-related, character, inserted by a later hand; in its strongest form the thesis holds it to be positively anti-Pauline.; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 23 (1961): 271-280; Hans Dieter Betz, "2 Cor 6:14-7:1: An Anti-Pauline Fragment?" Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973): 88-108

What scholars say about metochē

μετοχή is a deverbal abstract noun on μετέχω (μετά + ἔχω) and a New Testament hapax legomenon, occurring only at 2 Corinthians 6:14 (τίς γὰρ μετοχὴ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ ἀνομίᾳ). The lexical sense is uncontested: LSJ gives "sharing, participation" with a commercial "partnership"; Thayer "a sharing, communion, fellowship"; Abbott-Smith "sharing, fellowship". The word is well attested from Herodotus 1.144 onward (exclusion of a city τῆς μετοχῆς in a shared sanctuary), in Plato (Ep. 345a), the Palatine Anthology, and Plutarch (Mor. 945f), so its rarity is a quirk of the New Testament corpus rather than of Greek. The documentary evidence is the most relevant background: P.Cair.Zen. 369.2 (3rd c. BCE) περὶ μετοχῆς τοῦ παραδείσου for shares in an orchard, P.Rev.Laws 14.10 for partnerships in a revenue-law context, and the Hierapytna treaty formula GDI 5040.13, 5042.8 for μετοχή in all things divine and human; the cognate μέτοχος is thoroughly commercial in the papyri (the formula ὁ δεῖνα καὶ μέτοχοι for boards of tax-farmers, bankers, and market officials). Note that Moulton-Milligan has no separate entry for μετοχή (only for μέτοχος), so this papyrological material is properly credited to LSJ rather than to MM, a point worth checking against a print copy. The philosophical strand (Aristotle, Metaphysics 1030a13 κατὰ μετοχήν; Philo, De opificio mundi 1.47; the Platonic tradition of μέθεξις and μετουσία) is real for the word but is generally judged irrelevant to Paul, who argues in commercial and associative rather than metaphysical terms. In the LXX the securely attested occurrence is Psalm 121:3 LXX (122:3 MT), ἧς ἡ μετοχὴ αὐτῆς ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό, rendering שֶׁחֻבְּרָה־לָּהּ from the root חבר; LSJ glosses this separately as "compactness", recognizing a stretched sense of structural union, and μέτοχος regularly renders חָבֵר. Claimed occurrences in Sirach or 1 Esdras should be verified against a critical concordance before use. Within 2 Corinthians 6:14-16 the noun heads a series of five terms of association (μετοχή, κοινωνία, συμφώνησις, μερίς, συγκατάθεσις); Allo argued that the demand for parallel rhetorical questions drove Paul to hunt synonyms, and Hughes that the repetitive character of the passage required a rich diversity of vocabulary, a line Esler extends to the choice of the rarer terms specifically. No major commentator on 2 Corinthians argues a firm strength differential between μετοχή and κοινωνία here; where a nuance is granted, κοινωνία stresses the communion and μετοχή the concrete share a partnership presupposes. On the integrity of the paragraph and on the referent of the ἄπιστοι, see the disputes recorded on the verse; the vocabulary argument for interpolation is weak on its own terms, since μετέχω is used five times by Paul (Thrall, NTS 24 [1978]: 133 n.4). Verbatim wording from the major critical commentaries (Thrall/ICC, Harris/NIGTC, Furnish/Anchor Bible, Martin/WBC, Barnett/NICNT, Guthrie/BECNT, Seifrid/Pillar) was not obtainable in open full text; the positions attributed to them here rest on what is reliably reported in accessible peer-reviewed and reference literature and should be checked in print before being quoted.

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

  • LSJ, s.v. μετοχήlexicon
  • BDAG, s.v. μετοχήlexicon
  • Joseph Henry Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. μετοχήlexicon
  • G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1937), s.v. μετοχήlexicon
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), s.v. μέτοχοςlexicon
  • E.-B. Allo, Saint Paul: Seconde Épître aux Corinthiens (Paris, 1956)commentary
  • Philip E. Hughes, Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962)commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, 2 Corinthians, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994)commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, "The Problem of II Cor. vi.14-vii.1 in Some Recent Discussion," New Testament Studies 24 (1978): 132-148article
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005)commentary
  • William J. Webb, Returning Home: New Covenant and Second Exodus as the Context for 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1, JSNTSup 85 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993)monograph
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "Qumran and the Interpolated Paragraph in 2 Cor 6:14-7:1," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 23 (1961): 271-280article
  • Hans Dieter Betz, "2 Cor 6:14-7:1: An Anti-Pauline Fragment?" Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973): 88-108article
  • Gordon D. Fee, "II Corinthians vi.14-vii.1 and Food Offered to Idols," New Testament Studies 23 (1977): 140-161article
  • Philip F. Esler, "Paul's Explanation of Christ-Movement Identity in 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1: A Social Identity Approach," Biblical Theology Bulletin 51.2 (2021): 101-118article
  • Novum Testamentum 55.1 (2013): 45-60, on the identity of the ἄπιστοι in 2 Corinthians 6:14article
  • Herodotus, Histories 1.144primary-source
  • Aristotle, Metaphysics 1030a13primary-source

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

All attested forms of μετοχή

nominative f s

μετοχὴ

2Co 6:14