StrongerBible

orcheomai

ὀρχέομαι

GreekG3738“dance”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 11:17Mat 14:6Mrk 6:22Luk 7:32
Word studyResearch-gradeor-KHEH-oh-myverb

What orcheomai means

to dance: to move the body rhythmically, whether in festive celebration or as a performance

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the plain, everyday Greek word for dancing, used from the earliest Greek poetry onward. It names the movement itself and says nothing about the character of the dance: it can describe children skipping to a tune, a warrior's display, worshippers before God, or a hired entertainer at a party. Whatever color a particular dance has comes from the scene around it, not from the word.

All four of its appearances in the New Testament fall into two settings. In the picture of children calling to one another in the marketplace (Matthew 11:17 and its parallel), Jesus describes the festive dance children would do in imitation of a wedding, in answer to the flute; the point of the little parable is how ordinary the image is. In the account of Herod's birthday banquet (Mark 6:22 and its parallel), the daughter of Herodias dances, pleases Herod, and is rewarded with the head of John the Baptist.

Greek had more specific dance words available, and the Gospel writers did not reach for them here. There was a word for the festive group or circle dance (χορός) and a broader word for playful revelry (παίζω), as well as blunt terms for lewd dancing. This word is the neutral, general choice, which is why the same verb can cover a wedding romp and a court performance without shifting its meaning.

Mat 11:17Mat 14:6Mrk 6:22Luk 7:32
Mrk 6:22

Whether the daughter's dance at Herod's banquet carried an erotic or seductive character. The verb means simply "to dance" and describes no manner; the question is what the banquet setting, and the remark that the dance "pleased" Herod, imply.

  • majorityThe text describes no erotic dance. Mark calls the dancer a "little girl," the same word he uses for the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus, and she runs out to consult her mother, so a mature seductress is unlikely; the sensual Salome is a later Christian and post-Christian development read back into the scene.; A. Yarbro Collins, Mark, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2007), on 6:14-29; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 2002), 255-262; R. S. Kraemer, "Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer," JBL 125 (2006): 321-349; W. J. C. Weren, "Herodias and Salome in Mark's Story about the Beheading of John the Baptist," HTS Teologiese Studies 75.4 (2019)
  • minorityThe dance-verb is neutral, but the setting and the note that the dance pleased Herod imply some sensual charge, since a lone female dancing before male banqueters was normally the role of hired entertainers rather than an aristocrat's daughter.; J. Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Yale Bible 27 (Doubleday, 2000), 391-402, esp. 396; R. A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26, WBC 34A (Word, 1989), 328-336; B. Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Eerdmans, 2001), 211-217

What scholars say about orcheomai

The verb is the general Greek word for dancing, attested from Homer on, and the standard lexica treat it as register-neutral: BDAG (3rd ed., 725) glosses it simply "to engage in movements associated with dance, dance," LSJ organizes it under "dance" (with sub-uses for choral, festive, warrior, and named dances), the later transitive "represent by pantomime," and a metaphorical "quiver, throb"; Louw-Nida (15.246) folds it together with choros under "patterned rhythmic movements," and EDNT (2:534) and the Cambridge Greek Lexicon concur. The theological lexicons (TDNT, Spicq) carry no dedicated article, itself a sign of the word's ordinariness. In the Septuagint it renders Hebrew raqad (Eccl 3:4; 1 Chr 15:29; Isa 13:21), while the women's circle-dance (machol / chul) is consistently given as choros/choreuo and "play, sport" (sachaq) as paizo, so a reader steeped in the Greek Old Testament would not have heard this verb as either the standard festival term or a marked erotic one. Moulton-Milligan (459) documents ordinary occupational dancers in the papyri (P.Grenf. II 67), placing banquet dancing in the recognizable category of festival entertainment. In the Q parable of the children in the marketplace (Matt 11:17 // Luke 7:32) commentators (Jeremias, Davies-Allison, Luz, Nolland, Fitzmyer) read it as the festive wedding-style round dance answering the flute. For the Herod pericope (Mark 6:22 // Matt 14:6) modern criticism largely holds that the text describes no erotic dance and that the seductive Salome is later reception history (Yarbro Collins, France, Hooker, Kraemer, Janes, Weren), while a middle group locates a sensual charge not in this verb but in the setting and in the verb "pleased" (Marcus, Guelich, Witherington).

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 (Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., 2000), 725lexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with Rev. Suppl.), s.v.lexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (1989), 15.246lexicon
  • H. Balz and G. Schneider (eds.), Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (Eerdmans, 1990-93), 2:534theological-dictionary
  • J. Diggle et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon (Cambridge, 2021), s.v.lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), 459lexicon
  • J. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 2nd ed. (1972), 160-161monograph
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew, ICC (T&T Clark, 1988-97), 2:260-264commentary
  • U. Luz, Matthew 8-20, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2001), 145-150commentary
  • A. Yarbro Collins, Mark, Hermeneia (Fortress, 2007)commentary
  • J. Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Yale Bible 27 (Doubleday, 2000), 391-402commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 2002), 255-262commentary
  • R. S. Kraemer, "Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer," JBL 125 (2006): 321-349article
  • M. I. Gruber, "Ten Dance-Derived Expressions in the Hebrew Bible," Biblica 62 (1981): 328-346article

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

All attested forms of ὀρχέομαι

aorist middle indicative 2p

ὠρχήσασθε

Mat 11:17, Luk 7:32

aorist middle indicative 3s

ὠρχήσατο

Mat 14:6

aorist middle participle genitive f s

ὀρχησαμένης

Mrk 6:22