StrongerBible

procheirotoneō

προχειροτονέω

GreekG4401“chosen beforehand, appointed”

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

Act 10:41
Compound of
proπρόbefore47G4253
cheirotoneōχειροτονέωto appoint4G5500
Word studyResearch-gradepro-khay-ro-to-NEH-ohverb

What procheirotoneō means

to choose beforehand: to single someone out and appoint them in advance for a particular role.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The word joins the prefix "before, in advance" to an old Greek verb for choosing. In classical Athens that verb pictured citizens in the assembly raising their hands to vote, so it first meant "to elect by a show of hands." By the first century the literal image of the raised hand had faded, and the word had come to mean simply to pick someone out and appoint them, often to a public post.

It appears only once in the New Testament, in Acts 10:41, where Peter tells a Roman officer's household that the risen Jesus appeared "not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen beforehand by God." Because God is the one doing the choosing, no literal show of hands is in view. What carries the weight is the "beforehand": God had already singled out a particular circle of witnesses before the resurrection, and that prior choice is what makes their testimony reliable.

The verb belongs to a set of words Luke uses for God's appointing of official witnesses. Its closest relative is προχειρίζω, which Luke likewise reserves for people God designates to testify. It should not be read as the deeper decree language Paul favors, such as προορίζω "to predestine"; here the point is a definite, prior selection of the apostolic witnesses, not a statement about an eternal plan reaching back before creation.

Act 10:41

Disputed

How far the prefix "beforehand" reaches: whether it marks God's choice of the apostolic witnesses within Jesus' earthly ministry, or a predestining decree from before creation.

  • majorityThe prior choice is historical: God designated the apostolic circle before the resurrection appearances, most naturally when Jesus called the Twelve, and the verb makes no claim about an eternal decree.; Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Westminster, 1971), on Acts 10:41; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, Anchor Bible 31 (Doubleday, 1998), on Acts 10:41
  • minorityThe prior choice reaches back to eternity, an appointment of the apostles "before the world was made."; John Calvin, Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, on Acts 10:41

What scholars say about procheirotoneō

The verb is a New Testament hapax legomenon, occurring only at Acts 10:41 in the perfect passive participle προκεχειροτονημένοις. It is a compound of προ- ("beforehand") with χειροτονέω, which in classical Athens denoted electing by a show of hands in the assembly (Xenophon, Anab. 3.2.33) and stood opposite κληρόω/λαγχάνω, "choose by lot" (Plato, Politicus 300a). The compound is attested for "elect beforehand" (Plato, Leges 6.765b; Dio Cassius 50.4) or "take a preliminary vote" (Aeschines 1.23; Demosthenes 24.11), and is otherwise rare: absent from the LXX, the papyri surveyed by Moulton-Milligan, Philo, and Josephus. By the Hellenistic period the χείρ element had bleached out, as shown where God is the subject of the base verb χειροτονέω (Philo, Praem. 9; Josephus, Ant. 6.13.9), which forecloses literal hand-raising. The lexicons converge: BDAG "choose or appoint beforehand/in advance"; LSJ "choose, elect before"; Louw-Nida domain 30 "choose, select"; Thayer notes the loss of the extending-hand notion; EDNT stresses divine pre-selection; Lohse (TDNT 9) traces the shift to "select/nominate" from the fifth century BC. Critical commentators (Barrett, Fitzmyer, Haenchen, Conzelmann, Bruce, Keener, Bock, Peterson, Marshall, Polhill, Schnabel) read the participle as "chosen beforehand," locating the weight in ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ and in Luke's theology of divine designation, and connecting it to the resurrection-witness texts (Acts 1:8, 22; 2:32; 3:15; 13:31) and to Luke's cognate προχειρίζομαι (Acts 3:20; 22:14; 26:16). Pao sets the "chosen witnesses" language against Isaiah 43:10 LXX. Three subordinate debates run within the shared gloss: whether the "hand" image retains any charge (majority: dead metaphor), how formal or official the appointment is (Witherington presses the civic-official register), and how far "beforehand" reaches (critical mainstream: historical pre-appointment of the Twelve; Calvin and some evangelicals: pretemporal predestination). The text is firm: προκεχειροτονημένοις is read unanimously by the major witnesses with no variant at the participle (the Western expansion at the end of the verse, adding a phrase about associating with him for forty days, harmonizes to Acts 1:3).

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 (Bauer-Danker), 3rd ed., s.v. προχειροτονέω, p. 872lexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v. προχειροτονέω and s.v. χειροτονέωlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 30lexicon
  • Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. χειροτονέωlexicon
  • H. Balz and G. Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (EDNT), vol. 3, s.v. χειροτονέωdictionary
  • Eduard Lohse, "χειροτονέω," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 9:437ff.dictionary
  • C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, ICC vol. 1 (T&T Clark, 1994), on Acts 10:41commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, Anchor Bible 31 (Doubleday, 1998), on Acts 10:41commentary
  • Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 2 (Baker Academic, 2013), on Acts 10:34-43commentary
  • David W. Pao, Acts and the Isaianic New Exodus, WUNT 2/130 (Mohr Siebeck, 2000)monograph
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1994), on Acts 10:41commentary

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

All attested forms of προχειροτονέω

perfect passive participle dative m p

προκεχειροτονημένοις

Act 10:41