StrongerBible

sapros

σαπρός

GreekG4550“bad, rotten, ...”

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 7:17Mat 7:18Mat 12:33 (2×)Mat 13:48Luk 6:43 (2×)Eph 4:29
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradesah-PROSSadjective

What sapros means

bad in the sense of failing at its purpose: worthless, unsound, no good for what it is meant to do

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The root idea behind this word is decay. It comes from a verb meaning "to rot," and in older Greek it described genuinely spoiled things: rancid fish, rotten wood, worm-eaten olives, diseased flesh. By the time of the New Testament, though, everyday Greek had worn the word down. Ordinary letters and documents use it for tired farmland, threadbare cloaks, and shabby situations of every kind, much as English speakers say "lousy," "no good," or "junk." An ancient definition captures the shift exactly: people called something "bad" (sapros) when it failed to do what it was supposed to do.

That functional sense is what carries through every New Testament use, even though the vivid image of rot still colors the word. The same verdict of "worthless, unfit for its purpose" is applied to three different things:

  • A tree or its fruit that fails to be good, betraying an unsound source (Matthew 7, Matthew 12, Luke 6).
  • Fish that a fisherman throws away as not worth keeping (Matthew 13).
  • Speech that does harm instead of building others up (Ephesians 4).

The key to reading all of these is to resist the literal picture of decay. A tree that was actually rotting would bear no fruit at all, and freshly caught fish are not putrid, so "rotten" misses the point in each case. The word passes a verdict of "no good," not a description of a smell. It sits close to the ordinary word for "evil" or "bad" (πονηρός), and in the tree saying the two are deliberately paired: the bad tree yields evil fruit.

Nuances

1aof a tree or its fruit: bad and unsound, failing to be good and so betraying an inwardly bad source
Mat 7:17Mat 7:18Mat 12:33 (2×)Luk 6:43 (2×)
1bof fish: worthless and unfit to keep, the catch that gets thrown out
Mat 13:48
Mat 13:48

What makes the discarded fish "bad" (σαπρά) in Matthew 13:48.

  • majorityGeneral refuse: fish a working fisherman would not keep for any practical reason, whether too small, damaged, of an inedible kind, or unsellable.; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), vol. 2, 1991, on 13:47-50; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (WBC 33A), 1993, pp. 399-400
  • minoritySpecifically non-kosher fish, those without scales or fins that Levitical law forbids (Lev 11:9-12).; Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, 2008, p. 486
1cof speech: harmful or empty talk that does damage instead of building others up
Eph 4:29

What scholars say about sapros

σαπρός derives from σήπω ("to cause to rot") plus the state-describing adjective ending -ρός. Its earliest attested senses (Hipponax, Hippocrates, Aristophanes, Theophrastus) are literal: rancid salt-fish, rotten wood and rope, spoiled olives, diseased tissue. Already in the classical period it stretched to "decrepit, worn out," and comic poets could even use it positively of mellow aged wine, a use Photius flagged. By Hellenistic times the term had drifted to plain "bad, worthless." Moulton and Milligan concluded from the documentary papyri that "in Hellenistic it became a synonym for αἰσχρός or κακός," citing σαπρῶς περιπατῶ ("I walk about in rags," BGU 846), ἄρουραι σαπραί ("exhausted fields"), and worn garments; Epictetus speaks of a σαπρὸν δόγμα and Marcus Aurelius of a σαπρὸς καὶ κίβδηλος speaker. John Chrysostom preserves the anchoring functional definition: πᾶν, ὃ μὴ τὴν ἰδίαν χρείαν πληροῖ, σαπρὸν λέγομεν ("we call σαπρόν anything that does not fulfill its own function"). Modern lexica converge: BDAG glosses "bad, of poor quality," noting that "rotten" would be an inappropriate rendering in the tree sayings; Louw-Nida assigns it to the harm/destruction domain ("unwholesome and corrupting"); Hauck (TDNT VII) sums it as "unserviceable rather than offensive." The word is essentially absent from the canonical Septuagint (Old Greek uses πονηρός at Lev 27:14, 33); it enters Jewish Greek only through Symmachus, who used it for Hebrew רַע. In the Synoptic tree/fruit sayings (Matt 7:17-18; 12:33; Luke 6:43) commentators (Davies-Allison, Nolland, Luz, France, Keener) read σαπρός as moral/qualitative "unsound," since a literally rotten tree bears no fruit; the paired πονηρός fruit fixes the moral overtone. In the dragnet parable (Matt 13:48) the majority read σαπρά as "refuse, unusable," while Snodgrass argues specifically for non-kosher fish (Lev 11:9-12). In Eph 4:29 commentators divide softly between "useless, fails to build up" (Thielman, Barth, following Hauck) and "harmful, destructive" (BDAG, Louw-Nida, O'Brien), with Paul's own πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν τῆς χρείας supplying the positive contrast.

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

  • F. W. Danker, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (BDAG), 3rd ed., 2000, s.v. σαπρός, p. 913lexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed., 1996, §20.14lexicon
  • Friedrich Hauck, "σήπω, σαπρός," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. VII, pp. 94-98dictionary
  • H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon (LSJ), 9th ed., 1940, s.v. σαπρόςlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-Literary Sources, 1930, s.v. σαπρόςlexicon
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), vols. 1-2, 1988-1991, on 7:17-18, 12:33, 13:47-50commentary
  • Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, 2008, p. 486monograph
  • Frank Thielman, Ephesians (BECNT), 2010, p. 316commentary
  • Peter T. O'Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (PNTC), 1999, on 4:29commentary

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

All attested forms of σαπρός

nominative n s

σαπρὸν

Mat 7:17, Mat 7:18, Luk 6:43

accusative m s

σαπρόν

Mat 12:33, Luk 6:43

accusative n p

σαπρὰ

Mat 13:48

accusative n s

σαπρὸν

Mat 12:33

nominative m s

σαπρὸς

Eph 4:29