to press a personal request in order to get, escape, or turn something away: to ask for, beg off, decline, refuse, or avoid
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This verb begins from the ordinary Greek word for asking (αἰτέω) and adds a prefix meaning "from" or "aside." At root, then, it means to ask something for oneself, usually with a lean toward asking one's way out of it. From that single starting point it fans out across the New Testament into a surprising range.
The uses line up along a path from asking to refusing:
at the mild end it simply means to ask for something, as when a Passover crowd asks the governor to release a prisoner
a step further, it means to beg off or ask to be excused, as the dinner guests do when they decline the invitation
further still, it means to decline or refuse outright, as Paul does when he says he does not refuse to die
at the strong end it means to reject, avoid, or have nothing to do with something, as Timothy is told to do with silly myths and pointless quarrels
What holds these together is the note of personal choice voiced as a request. Whether a person is asking to receive something, asking to be let off, or asking it away, the word frames the decision as an appeal made on one's own behalf. English cannot keep that thread with a single word, which is why translations reach for "ask," "excuse," "refuse," "avoid," and "reject" at different points.
Nuances
1ato ask for, request: to petition that something be granted
TranslatabilityDirect
Mrk 15:6*
1bto beg off, ask to be excused, make excuse: to decline an invitation or plead to be spared
TranslatabilityApproximate
Luk 14:18 (2×)Luk 14:19Heb 12:19
1cto decline, refuse: to turn down doing or granting something
TranslatabilityDirect
Act 25:111Ti 5:11*
1dto reject, avoid, shun: to turn away from a thing or person and have nothing to do with it
TranslatabilityApproximate
1Ti 4:72Ti 2:23Tit 3:10Heb 12:25 (2×)
Related words
The English words used to translate paraiteomai
“refuse”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
commands an active turning-away, a refusal to engage with the thing at all1Ti 4:72Ti 2:23
Both
both direct a person to keep clear of something unwanted2Ti 2:23
Only avoid
English "avoid" can sound like merely sidestepping something passively, softer than the firm rejection the word intends
“reject”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“ask for”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How paraiteomai differs from similar Greek words
αἰτέωαἰτέω is the plain "ask" or "request"; this word is its middle-voice compound that asks on one's own behalf, most often to get out of or turn something away.
Begging off from an invitation or obligation: asking to be excused, as the dinner guests each in turn make their excuses.Luk 14:18Luk 14:19
Shunning or steering clear of something: a command to avoid it and have nothing to do with it, whether foolish controversies, profane myths, or a divisive person after warning.2Ti 2:231Ti 4:7Tit 3:10
Pleading to be spared: begging that something not happen, as the people begged that no further word be spoken to them at the mountain.Heb 12:19
Both
Both can name a plain refusal: declining or rejecting something offered or demanded. Moses "refused" the honor of Pharaoh's household; the hearers are warned not to "refuse" the one who speaks.Heb 11:24Heb 12:25
Disowning a person or one's allegiance to them: saying "I do not know the man," most weightily in denying Christ, which draws its own answering denial.Mat 26:72Mat 10:332Ti 2:12
Denying that something is true: flatly contradicting a fact or a claim, as when the council cannot deny the miracle done in plain sight.Act 4:16Jhn 1:20
Renouncing a way of life or a quality: turning one's back on it, as in "denying ungodliness" or people who deny the power of godliness.Tit 2:122Ti 3:5Luk 9:23
This is the courteous excuse of ordinary social life. The invited guests all begin to excuse themselves, and two of them say in so many words, "please consider me excused." The refusal is polite, verbal, and comes with a reason attached. The other word never carries this note of etiquette.Luk 14:18Luk 14:19
It can point the opposite way, toward asking for something rather than declining it, because at bottom it means to press a request. The crowd asks Pilate for the prisoner they want released, and the terrified people at the mountain beg that nothing more be said to them. One is a favor sought, the other a release from something dreaded, and the same word does both. The other word can never mean asking.Mrk 15:6Heb 12:19
It is the standing instruction in the letters to Timothy and Titus for what a leader should decline to take up in the first place: have nothing to do with pointless legends, stay clear of foolish arguments that only breed fights, do not enroll the younger widows, and after two warnings break off with a man who splits the church. This is settled policy decided in advance, and the other word never issues that kind of ruling.1Ti 4:72Ti 2:231Ti 5:11Tit 3:10
It can decline an outcome rather than an offer. Paul tells Festus that if he has really done something deserving death, he does not ask to be spared it. What is waived here is his own fate, not a thing put in front of him, and the other word does not stretch that far.Act 25:11
Both
Both name the outright rejection of the God who speaks, and Hebrews 12:25 lays them side by side to say so. The generation at the mountain refused the one who warned them on earth; we would be the ones turning away from the one who warns from heaven. The writer swaps the words deliberately, treating the second as the graver version of the first, which only works because they cover the same offense. In both, what gets rejected is a person, not a proposal.Heb 12:25
Only this word covers plain physical direction, putting a thing back where it belongs. Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back into its place. Nothing is being refused; something is simply being moved the other way.Mat 26:52
The turning can be done to someone else, and when God does it, it is a rescue. God sends Jesus to bless people by turning each one from his wrongdoing, and the promised deliverer will turn godlessness away from Jacob. The accusation against Jesus before Pilate works the same way, that he was turning the people. The other word is always about what the speaker will or will not take on himself, never something worked on another person.Act 3:26Rom 11:26Luk 23:14
When it does mean refusal, the refusal is shown rather than spoken, and no reason is offered. You are told not to turn away from the neighbor who wants to borrow, and Paul reports that everyone in Asia turned away from him. That is a back presented, not a case made. The other word always comes with words attached: an excuse, a plea, a ruling.Mat 5:422Ti 1:15
Where teaching is at stake, what people turn away from is the truth, and myths are what they turn toward. Ears turn from the truth to legends, and people turn from the truth while paying attention to human rules instead. In the same letters the other word is the one used for pushing the myths away, so the two face in opposite directions.2Ti 4:4Tit 1:14
paraiteomai in the other biblical languages
מָאֵןHebrew“to refuse”מֵאֵן is the flat Hebrew "refuse" (as Pharaoh refused to let Israel go); this Greek word refuses through a personal request or by turning away.
It can mean to excuse oneself politely, to beg off from an invitation or duty. When the dinner guests decline the banquet, each one asks to be let off graciously rather than flatly refusing.Luk 14:18Luk 14:19
It reaches into the sense of avoiding or having nothing to do with something, steering clear of pointless quarrels or a divisive person.1Ti 4:72Ti 2:23Tit 3:10
It can even swing the other direction and mean to ask for or request, as when the crowd asks Pilate to release a prisoner. The Hebrew word never carries this positive sense of making a request.Mrk 15:6
Both
Both name a refusal to heed God's word or warning. The Hebrew word marks Israel refusing to hear what God said; the Greek word warns the readers not to refuse the one who speaks from heaven.Jer 11:10Heb 12:25
Both carry the plain sense of declining to do a thing, a straightforward "will not" in the face of a request or prospect.Num 22:13Act 25:11
It names a hardened, willful refusal to obey, most famously Pharaoh flatly unwilling to let Israel go despite repeated demands. It is a settled stubbornness, not a polite excuse.Exo 4:23Exo 7:14Exo 10:3
It is the word for refusing comfort in grief, the inconsolable will that turns away every consolation, as Jacob and Rachel do over their lost children.Gen 37:35Jer 31:15Psa 77:2
It repeatedly describes a people refusing to repent or return to God, a persistent unwillingness to change course.Jer 5:3Hos 11:5Zec 7:11
מָאַסHebrew“to reject”מָאַס rejects with contempt or disdain; this Greek word declines or avoids without that note of despising.
Excuses oneself out of an invitation or obligation, begging off from something one is asked to do. The banquet guests each ask to be let out of coming.Luk 14:18Luk 14:19
Presses a request the other way, asking for something or entreating to get it, since the verb starts from the ordinary word for asking.Mrk 15:6Heb 12:19
Steers clear of a practice or a troublemaker as a standing policy: have nothing to do with silly myths, pointless quarrels, or a divisive person.1Ti 4:72Ti 2:23Tit 3:10
Both
Both name a plain refusal to accept what is set before someone, turning down a thing or a demand. The Greek word declines to accept even death; the Hebrew word refuses to accept the evil.Act 25:11Isa 7:15
Casts off something or someone as worthless, spurning it with contempt. The builders threw away the very stone that became the cornerstone.Psa 118:22Isa 5:24
Breaks a bond by rejecting the other party outright, the covenant word for God and his people turning each other away.1Sa 8:71Sa 15:232Ki 17:15
Loathes to the point of self-disgust, a person coming to despise his own life or himself.Job 7:16Job 42:6
What scholars say about paraiteomai
παραιτέομαι is a middle-voice compound of παρά and αἰτέω, attested from classical Greek onward and functioning as a deponent in the New Testament. LSJ traces a development from "beg from another, ask for" to "avert by entreaty, deprecate" and on to "decline, refuse." In the documentary papyri (Moulton and Milligan) it is a standard term for begging off a public office or liturgy, which illuminates both the "ask to be excused" force in Luke 14 and the Pastoral commands to decline or shun. BDAG groups the New Testament occurrences under three heads: to ask for (Mark 15:6, where the reading παρῃτοῦντο competes with the simplex ᾐτοῦντο), to make excuse or beg off (Luke 14:18-19; Heb 12:19), and to decline, refuse, reject, or avoid (Acts 25:11; the four Pastoral imperatives; Heb 12:25). The negative senses dominate the corpus.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. παραιτέομαιlexicon
LSJ, s.v. παραιτέομαιlexicon
Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. παραιτέομαιlexicon