StrongerBible

rhuomai

ῥύομαι

GreekG4506deliver, rescue

Appears 18 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 6:13Mat 27:43Luk 1:74Luk 11:4Rom 7:24Rom 11:26Rom 15:312Co 1:10 (3×)Col 1:131Th 1:102Th 3:22Ti 3:112Ti 4:172Ti 4:182Pe 2:72Pe 2:9
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Word studyResearch-gradeRHOO-oh-myverb

What rhuomai means

to rescue: to reach into a place of danger and pull someone out of it to safety

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the Bible's vivid word for rescue. It does not picture safety in general; it pictures the moment of being snatched out of harm, like a hand reaching in and dragging a person clear of death. The danger can be physical (a lion's mouth, deadly peril, persecution), spiritual (the grip of sin, the power of darkness), or final (the wrath to come), but the image is always the same: someone powerful pulling a trapped person out.

The rescuer is almost always God, and in the New Testament that role passes to Jesus. The word arrives loaded with this history. In the Greek Old Testament it was the standard word for God rescuing Israel out of Egypt and rescuing the faithful from fire, lions, and enemies, and the prayer "rescue me, Lord" became a fixed cry for help. The Lord's Prayer picks up that cry in "rescue us from the evil one."

Because the rescuer is so central, the word also hardened into a title. "The Deliverer" (literally, "the one who rescues") names God in the Old Testament and names Christ in Paul's letters. So the same word covers both the action of rescuing and the person known for doing it.

The one core idea holds across every use, which is why it counts as a single meaning rather than several: every occurrence is some form of being drawn out of peril to safety.

Nuances

1ato rescue someone from danger by pulling them out of it
Mat 6:13Mat 27:43Luk 1:74Luk 11:4Rom 7:24Rom 15:312Co 1:10 (3×)Col 1:132Th 3:22Ti 3:112Ti 4:172Ti 4:18
1bthe Deliverer: the one who rescues, used as a title for God and for Christ
Rom 11:261Th 1:10

What scholars say about rhuomai

The major lexica converge on a single firm semantic core. BDAG gives the unified gloss "to rescue from danger, save, rescue, deliver, preserve," organizing the syntax as bare accusative, plus the constructions with ἀπό (from) and ἐκ (out of). Louw-Nida places it in the domain of danger and safety and explicitly distinguishes it from σῴζω: ῥύομαι foregrounds the rescue from acute peril, σῴζω the resulting safety. Kasch (TDNT VI.998-1003) traces three stages: classical (gods, humans, even helmets and walls rescue), the Septuagint (the agent narrows almost exclusively to God), and the New Testament (eighteen occurrences, heavily Pauline, strongly eschatological). Silva (NIDNTTE) updates Kasch, rejecting the old derivation from ῥέω (flow) and placing the verb in one semantic field with σῴζω; Beekes and Chantraine derive it instead from a root meaning watch over, protect, cognate with Latin servare. The substantival ὁ ῥυόμενος (the Deliverer) is a divine title in the Septuagint (Isaiah 59:20; Psalms) transferred to Christ in Paul (Romans 11:26; 1 Thessalonians 1:10). The verb renders chiefly נצל (Hiphil) and, in Isaiah and the Psalter, גאל. Debated edges: the masculine-vs-neuter referent of τοῦ πονηροῦ in Matthew 6:13, the text-form ἐκ Σιών in Romans 11:26, and how much weight the ἀπό/ἐκ contrast can bear (Wallace and BDF treat the prepositions as a soft tendency, not a rule).

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, s.v. ῥύομαιlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 21.23lexicon
  • W. Kasch, ῥύομαι, TDNT VI.998-1003dictionary
  • M. Silva, NIDNTTE, vol. 4, 282-286dictionary
  • C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:215-217dictionary
  • R. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Brill, 2010), 466lexicon
  • D. B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996), 368grammar
  • J. R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News (2002)monograph
  • R. J. Bauckham, 2 Peter, Jude (WBC)commentary

All attested forms of ῥύομαι

aorist middle-or-passive indicative 3s

ἐρρύσατο

2Co 1:10, Col 1:13, 2Ti 3:11, 2Pe 2:7

future middle indicative 3s

ῥύσεται, ῥύσεταί

Rom 7:24, 2Co 1:10, 2Co 1:10, 2Ti 4:18

aorist middle imperative 2s

ῥῦσαι

Mat 6:13, Luk 11:4

aorist middle imperative 3s

ῥυσάσθω

Mat 27:43

aorist passive indicative 1s

ἐρρύσθην

2Ti 4:17

aorist passive participle accusative m p

ῥυσθέντας

Luk 1:74

aorist passive subjunctive 1p

ῥυσθῶμεν

2Th 3:2

aorist passive subjunctive 1s

ῥυσθῶ

Rom 15:31

present middle-or-passive infinitive

ῥύεσθαι

2Pe 2:9

present middle-or-passive participle accusative m s

ῥυόμενον

1Th 1:10

present middle-or-passive participle nominative m s

ῥυόμενος

Rom 11:26