to have said it beforehand: to have already put something into words ahead of time, so that the earlier statement still stands
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary verb for saying with "before" fastened to the front, and in the New Testament it turns up only in its completed forms. The sense is not "I am telling you in advance" but "I have already told you," and the weight falls on the fact that the words are out and still standing.
The "before" can point in either of two directions, which is what gives the word its range:
back to something the speaker said earlier in the same letter or conversation
past the event itself, to a warning issued while there was still time to act on it
The act is the same in both cases; only the reference point moves.
A third use gathers real weight. When Peter and Jude tell their readers to remember the words spoken beforehand by the prophets and by the apostles, the point is that those words had been on record long before the trouble arrived, so the trouble confirms them instead of catching anyone off guard. The word itself says nothing about how the speaker came by what he said; that is the work of a different word, to prophesy (προφητεύω).
Nuances
1ato have said it earlier: pointing back to words already spoken in the same letter or conversation
TranslatabilityDirect
2Co 7:3Gal 1:9*Heb 4:7
1bto have given warning ahead of time, so that no one is caught off guard when it comes
Mat 24:25Mrk 13:232Co 13:2*
1cof words spoken in advance by prophets or apostles and now standing on record, to be remembered when the moment arrives
Rom 9:29*2Pe 3:2Jud 1:17
Related words
The English words used to translate proereō
“told beforehand”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“said before”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“spoken before”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
carries no built-in note of danger, since the caution comes from what was said rather than from the verb2Co 7:3Heb 4:7
Both
both fit an advance word meant to keep the hearer from being caught outMat 24:252Co 13:2
Only warned
English "warned" always implies a threat the hearer is expected to act on
How proereō differs from similar Greek words
προλέγωthe same verb of telling in advance in its ongoing forms, "I am telling you now, ahead of time," where this word carries the completed "I have already told you"
προέπωthe plain past "told beforehand" of the same verb, simply reporting that the word was said, where this word stresses that it was said and still stands
προφητεύωto speak as God's mouthpiece, which may or may not concern the future, where this word claims only that the words came out ahead of time
It says nothing about where the words came from. Most often it is simply a human teacher repeating a warning he had already given his readers in person.2Co 13:2Gal 1:92Co 7:3
Its whole point is timing: the words were on the table before the events were, so nobody can claim to have been taken by surprise.Mat 24:25Mrk 13:23
It covers apostolic teaching just as readily as prophecy, treating what was said earlier as a fixed record that readers are told to remember.Jud 1:172Pe 3:2
It can reach back to words already written in Scripture and pull them into a new argument, without any claim that the writer is speaking for God now.Heb 4:7
Both
Both can describe what the prophets of Israel said ahead of time, and both are used to introduce those words as still binding on the reader.Rom 9:291Pe 1:10Mat 15:7
Both can carry the plain idea of saying what is going to happen before it happens, one word stressing that the words came first, the other that they came from God.Mrk 13:23Jhn 11:51Jud 1:14
It means speaking for God under his Spirit, so the message is credited to God rather than to the speaker's own thinking.Luk 1:67Act 19:6Act 2:17
Much of what it describes is not about the future at all. In a church gathering it builds people up, encourages them, and lays their hearts bare.1Co 14:31Co 14:241Co 14:31
It names an ongoing activity a person can be known for, something someone does over a stretch of time rather than a single earlier statement.Act 21:9Rev 11:31Co 11:4
Because it is a claim to speak for God, it can be demanded on the spot as proof, and it can be falsely claimed by people God never sent.Mat 26:68Mat 7:22
ἐρῶthe plain verb for saying and speaking, without the "beforehand" that this word builds in
This word always looks back to something the speaker already said at an earlier point, and the "earlier" is packed into the word itself. Paul sets it directly against the plain present tense: "I said it before, and I am saying it again now".2Co 13:2Gal 1:92Co 7:3
It is the word for a warning issued ahead of the events, so that hearers are not caught off guard when trouble arrives: "look, I have told you in advance".Mat 24:25Mrk 13:23
It marks the words of prophets and apostles as spoken long before the readers' own day, which is why those words carry weight now.2Pe 3:2Jud 1:17Rom 9:29
Both
Both introduce a quotation from Scripture that the writer treats as still in force. Hebrews uses one and then the other within a few lines, both meaning "as it stands written".Heb 4:3Act 13:40Heb 4:7
Both can point to a finished act of speaking whose words the hearers are expected to remember afterward, whether it is Jesus' warning to Peter or the apostles' teaching to a church.Mat 26:75Jud 1:17
This is the ordinary, all purpose word for saying something. It carries no built in hint that the words came earlier or ahead of time, so it covers plain narrative speech: "I said to him, my lord, you know", or a crowd that speaks a second time.Rev 7:14Rev 19:3Mat 5:21
It carries the Gospel writers' standing formula for a prophecy coming true, "so that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled". That formula never uses the other word.Mat 1:22Mat 2:15Mat 4:14
It reports what anybody said, including people with no authority at all: a woman at a well, a would be magician, even pagan poets quoted to an Athenian crowd.Jhn 4:18Act 8:24Act 17:28
When a sentence with this word does point ahead to something not yet happened, the writer has to add "before" as a separate word, because the verb itself does not supply it.Jhn 14:29
proereō in the other biblical languages
נָגַדHebrew“to tell”the Hebrew verb for telling or declaring, which Isaiah turns into a challenge about announcing something before it happens, where this Greek word says only that the words came out ahead of time
The earlier timing is built into the word itself. It never simply means "tell"; it always means the telling already happened, ahead of the thing now being discussed, so Jesus can warn his followers about coming deception and add that they have been told in advance.Mat 24:25Mrk 13:23
It is a writer's way of pointing back to his own earlier words, whether spoken on a previous visit or written earlier in the same letter, so that the new sentence rests on something already said.2Co 7:3Gal 1:9Heb 4:7
It can label somebody else's earlier speech as standing authority worth remembering, whether Isaiah's word quoted as already spoken or the settled words of the prophets and the apostles.Rom 9:292Pe 3:2Jud 1:17
Both
Both put speech on record before the event, so that when it arrives the hearers know they were told first. The Hebrew word carries this whenever God says he announced things while they were still future, and the Greek word carries only this, which is why it is often rendered "foretold" or "told beforehand".Isa 48:5Isa 46:10Mat 24:25
Both are used for a warning laid down ahead of time so that nobody can later claim surprise, the Hebrew when Samuel spells out in advance what a king will do to Israel, the Greek when Paul repeats a warning he had already given in person.1Sa 8:92Co 13:2
This is the everyday word for passing news along. A runner arrives from the battlefield, a servant brings word back to the household, a report travels from one person to the next, and this is the verb that carries it.2Sa 1:52Ki 7:9Gen 22:20
It carries no timing of its own. Most of its uses look backward or sideways rather than forward, reporting what has already happened or disclosing what someone has been keeping quiet.Gen 3:11Rut 2:11Est 2:10
It reaches to what is hidden or out of reach: the answer to a riddle, a secret finally let out, or knowledge no human could supply when God questions Job.Jdg 14:12Jdg 16:17Job 38:4
It also does public work, announcing God's deeds and glory to the nations, and the skies themselves are said to do this announcing without a voice.Psa 19:1Psa 9:11Isa 66:19
What scholars say about proereō
προερέω is not an independent lexeme but the perfect and perfect-passive stem of the suppletive verb προλέγω, and BDAG accordingly lemmatizes the whole paradigm under προλέγω (present and imperfect προλέγω, second aorist προεῖπον, perfect προείρηκα / προείρημαι), with Strong's numbering distributing those stems across G4302, G4277 and G4280. BDAG distinguishes three uses: to state something previously (2 Cor 7:3;Gal 1:9;Heb 4:7, where καθὼς προείρηται resumes the Psalm 95 citation introduced at Heb 3:7, 15), to say beforehand of what is still future, and to give advance warning (Matt 24:25;Mark 13:23;2 Cor 13:2, where προείρηκα καὶ προλέγω pairs the earlier visit's warning with the present one). Romans 9:29 is the one genuinely contested instance: commentators divide over whether προείρηκεν means that Isaiah spoke in advance of the situation Paul addresses, or simply that the line quoted (Isa 1:9) stands earlier in the book than the one quoted in the preceding verses (Isa 10:22 to 23). In 2 Peter 3:2 and Jude 17 the perfect passive participle in τῶν προειρημένων ῥημάτων functions as a fixed formula for prophetic and apostolic tradition already on record, which Bauckham reads as characteristic of these letters' appeal to received teaching against opponents who had arisen afterwards.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. προλέγωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. προλέγωlexicon
C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), on Romans 9:29commentary
Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), on Hebrews 4:7commentary
Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary 50 (Waco: Word Books, 1983), on Jude 17 and 2 Peter 3:2commentary
Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), on 2 Corinthians 13:2commentary
Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), on Galatians 1:9commentary