StrongerBible

parakouō

παρακούω

GreekG3878“refuse to listen, disobey, ...”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 18:17 (2×)Mrk 5:36
Compound of
paraπαράfrom/with/beside196G3844
akouōἀκούωto hear436G191
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradepah-rah-KOO-ohverb

What parakouō means

to refuse to listen, and so to disregard or disobey

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

The word is built from the ordinary verb "to hear" plus a prefix meaning "beside" or "past," so at root it pictures hearing a word off to the side rather than straight on. From that single image the meaning runs in two directions: hearing something by accident (overhearing or mishearing it) and hearing something and then turning away from it (ignoring it, refusing to heed it, disobeying). The base verb it is built on is ἀκούω, plain hearing.

By the time of the New Testament the second direction had almost entirely won out: the word normally means to refuse to listen, and therefore to disobey. This sits on top of a Hebrew habit of speech in which "to hear" already carries the sense "to obey," so that "not hearing" is disobedience. That is what gives the word its weight. To refuse to hear an authoritative word is to rebel against it. It is the exact mirror image of the word for obedient, submissive hearing (ὑπακούω).

The clear New Testament uses follow this pattern. In Matthew 18:17 a person who "will not listen" even to the gathered community is to be treated as an outsider; the refusal is willful and settled. The one genuinely debated occurrence is Mark 5:36, where Jesus, as the report of the girl's death is spoken, either disregards it or overhears it, or possibly both at once. The related noun (παρακοή) carries the settled sense "disobedience."

Nuances

1ato refuse to heed a person or authority, and so to disobey
Mat 18:17 (2×)
1bto pay no attention to something said; to disregard a report
Mrk 5:36
Mrk 5:36

What παρακούσας means in Mark 5:36: whether Jesus disregarded the report of the girl's death, overheard it, pretended not to hear it, or whether Mark chose the word so that more than one of these is meant.

  • majorityJesus disregarded the report, sovereignly refusing its verdict that further help was pointless; the majority modern reading, resting on the Septuagint and wider Koine pattern and on the countermanding force of his immediate command not to fear but only believe.; Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26, WBC 34A (Dallas: Word, 1989), 302-303; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 284-285; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 239-240; J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (New York: UBS, 1989), 36.26
  • minorityJesus overheard the word spoken to Jairus; the older perceptual sense, supported by the direct-object construction and by the fact that the message was addressed to Jairus rather than to Jesus.; Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Bible 27 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 366-367, 370; Liddell, Scott, and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), s.v. παρακούω
  • contestedThe word is ambiguous by design, so that both overhearing and disregard resonate together.; Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel According to Saint Mark, BNTC (London: A&C Black, 1991), 149-150; Ezra P. Gould, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1896), 100

What scholars say about parakouō

The verb is a compound of παρά ("beside, past, amiss") and ἀκούω ("hear"), and the lexicons trace two branches from that image. LSJ distinguishes a perceptual line (hear accidentally; eavesdrop; hear imperfectly, misunderstand) from a volitional line (hear carelessly, take no heed of), and, tellingly, places Mark 5:36 under the "overhear" sense while assigning Matthew 18:17 to "take no heed of" with the genitive of person. BDAG likewise gives "to overhear what is not directly addressed to one" (listing Mark 5:36 as debated) and "to refuse to listen to and so be disobedient" (Matthew 18:17). Louw-Nida group the word under Obey/Disobey (36.26) with an explicit caution that it means not "not to listen" but "to refuse to listen," while separating Mark 5:36 into the perception domain. Moulton-Milligan cite P.Hib. I 170 (third century BCE) to show the "disregard" sense is native Koine rather than a Hebraism, against the older Hebraism thesis (Thayer) that Deissmann and Moulton overturned. In the Septuagint every occurrence carries the negative sense (Isaiah 65:12; Esther 3:3; Tobit 3:4), rendering negated שָׁמַע, עָבַר, and others; Muraoka glosses "to fail to listen to, disregard, disobey." Kittel's TDNT article treats the whole ἀκούω word-group as the biblical theology of hearing-as-obedience, with the cognate noun as the structural antonym of the noun for obedience. Matthew 18:17 is a scholarly non-crux, read as willful non-compliance by Luz, Davies-Allison, France, Nolland, Keener, and Hagner. Mark 5:36 is the crux: Metzger notes that the ambiguity of παρακούσας ("ignoring" or "overhearing") is precisely why scribes replaced it with ἀκούσας from the Lukan parallel, and the reading παρακούσας is printed by NA28, UBS5, SBLGNT, and THGNT. The modern majority (Guelich, Yarbro Collins, France, Pesch, Cranfield, Taylor, Swete) reads "disregard"; a substantial minority (Marcus, A. B. Bruce, LSJ) reads "overhear," noting the accusative object and the narrative frame; Hooker and Gould treat the ambiguity as deliberate. James Barr's Semantics of Biblical Language cautions against reading the acoustic sense into every occurrence merely because the word contains ἀκούω, a caution that shapes the "flat" reading of the cognate noun in Romans 5:19.

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

  • Frederick W. Danker et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. παρακούω, παρακοήlexicon
  • Liddell, Scott, and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with rev. suppl. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), s.v. παρακούωlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (New York: UBS, 1989), 36.26, 24lexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), s.v. παρακούωlexicon
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930), s.v. παρακούωlexicon
  • Gerhard Kittel, ἀκούω κτλ., in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Kittel, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 1:216-225theological-dictionary
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: UBS, 1994), 74commentary
  • Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 450-456commentary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 2, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 786-787commentary
  • Robert A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26, WBC 34A (Dallas: Word, 1989), 302-303commentary
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Bible 27 (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 366-367, 370commentary
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961)monograph

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

All attested forms of παρακούω

aorist active subjunctive 3s

παρακούσῃ

Mat 18:17, Mat 18:17

aorist active participle nominative m s

παρακούσας

Mrk 5:36