StrongerBible

orthotomeō

ὀρθοτομέω

GreekG3718“rightly dividing, correctly handling, ...”

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2Ti 2:15
Compound of
orthosὀρθόςupright2G3717
tomōterosτομώτεροςsharper1G5114
Word studyResearch-gradeor-tho-to-MEH-ohverb

What orthotomeō means

to handle the message of truth rightly: to keep it on a straight course, neither distorting it nor veering off into novelty

TranslatabilityUntranslatableCertaintyContested

This verb appears only once in the New Testament, in Paul's charge to Timothy to be a worker who has no need to be ashamed, "orthotomounta the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15). It is a rare and vivid word, built from "straight" and "to cut," and it survives in only a handful of places in all of ancient Greek, which is exactly why its precise force is so debated.

The picture behind it is most likely that of cutting a road: in older Greek, to "cut a road" meant to drive a straight route through rough country so a traveler reaches the destination without detours. The only earlier uses of this exact verb are two lines in the Greek translation of Proverbs, where it describes God cutting a person's paths straight (ישׁר). So when Paul tells Timothy to do this with the word of truth, the sense is to keep the gospel running along a straight, undeviating line.

The meaning is sharpened by its opposites in the surrounding verses: quarreling over words, empty godless chatter, and the false teachers who have "swerved off" by claiming the resurrection has already happened. Whatever the word means positively, it means not that. To handle the message rightly is to hold to the apostolic gospel without bending it and without inventing new doctrines of one's own.

2Ti 2:15

What scholars say about orthotomeō

ὀρθοτομέω (ὀρθός + τέμνω, conventionally denominative on ὀρθότομος) is exceptionally rare: the only pre-Christian attestations are LXX Proverbs 3:6 and 11:5, both governing ὁδούς and rendering the Piel of יָשַׁר, and Moulton-Milligan find no papyrus or inscriptional witness at all. The controlling background is the classical idiom τέμνειν ὁδόν, "to cut a road" (Herodotus 4.136; Thucydides 2.100.2; Josephus, Against Apion 1.309), so BDAG glosses "to cut a path in a straight direction." The KJV's "rightly dividing" is universally rejected. The live debate is whether the cutting image was still felt in the first century. The larger "faded" camp (Dibelius-Conzelmann, Fee, Marshall, Knight, Mounce, with Spicq tracing a path through the rhetorical ideal of ὀρθοέπεια to recte tractare, "handle correctly") reads it as "correctly handle / teach rightly." The "live/directional" camp (Johnson, Quinn-Wacker, Towner's "guiding the word of truth along a straight path," Fiore) keeps the path image audible, citing Plato Laws 7.800e. Both camps anchor the sense in the contrasts of 2 Tim 2:14-18 (λογομαχεῖν, κενοφωνίαι, ἀστοχέω) and the classical antonym καινοτομέω ("to innovate"): cut straight, do not cut new. The Greek Fathers themselves disagreed on the operative image (Chrysostom: surgical excision; Theodoret: a ploughman's furrow), and the cognate noun ὀρθοτομία hardened into a synonym for ὀρθοδοξία by Eusebius's day, evidence of a real semantic drift from concrete cutting toward "right teaching."

Where scholars disagree about orthotomeō

How vividly the literal "cutting" image was still felt when Paul used the verb, and therefore whether it should be rendered with directional force (cut a straight path, do not deviate) or as a faded idiom (handle correctly, teach rightly). Both sides agree the verb is defined by its contrast with the verbal and doctrinal swerving of 2 Timothy 2:14-18 and reject the older "rightly dividing."

  • contestedThe cutting force is essentially bleached by the first century; the word means to handle the gospel accurately or teach it rightly (so the NIV, NASB, RSV, ESV).; Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1972), ad loc.; Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (NIBC; Hendrickson, 1988), 255; I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; T&T Clark, 1999), 749-751; Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, vol. 2 (Hendrickson, 1994), 594-595
  • contestedThe path-cutting image is still alive or at least audible, so the verb carries a directional force best rendered "guiding the word of truth along a straight path" (so the LEB, NLT).; Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (AB 35A; Doubleday, 2001), 384-385; Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2006), 521; Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (ECC; Eerdmans, 2000), 666-675
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 NT and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago, 2000), 722lexicon
  • H. Köster, "τέμνω κτλ.," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 8 (Eerdmans, 1972), 111-112dictionary
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, vol. 2 (Hendrickson, 1994), 594-595lexicon
  • Moulton & Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), 456-457lexicon
  • Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2006), 521commentary
  • Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (NIBC; Hendrickson, 1988), 255commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; T&T Clark, 1999), 749-751commentary
  • Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (AB 35A; Doubleday, 2001), 384-385commentary
  • Jerome D. Quinn and William C. Wacker, The First and Second Letters to Timothy (ECC; Eerdmans, 2000), 666-675commentary
  • Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles (Hermeneia; Fortress, 1972), ad loc.commentary
  • William D. Mounce, Pastoral Epistles (WBC 46; Nelson, 2000), 524-525commentary
  • George W. Knight III, The Pastoral Epistles (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1992), 412-413commentary

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

All attested forms of ὀρθοτομέω

present active participle accusative m s

ὀρθοτομοῦντα

2Ti 2:15