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skolops

σκόλοψ

GreekG4647“thorn, stake, ...”

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

2Co 12:7
Compound of
skelosσκέλοςleg3G4628
optanomaiὀπτάνομαιto appear54G3700
Word studyResearch-gradeSKOH-lopsnoun

What skolops means

a sharp pointed object driven into flesh, anywhere from a thorn or splinter to a heavy impaling stake

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This word names something sharp that pierces the body, but how big and how violent it is shifts with the writer. In the older epic and high literary Greek it meant a stake: a sharpened pole set in a defensive ditch, or the pale on which a body was impaled. In the everyday Greek of letters, medical writers, and the Greek Old Testament it had narrowed to a thorn or a splinter, a small foreign body lodged in skin or eye. So the one word can carry a whole range, from a needle a doctor uses to pull out a sliver, to the spike a victim is hung on.

The word appears only once in the New Testament, in Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7), and that single use is famous precisely because the range matters. Read it as a thorn or splinter and the affliction sounds chronic and humiliating but bearable. Read it as a stake and the image turns violent, a man pinned and helpless. The Greek Old Testament, which is the Greek Paul read and quoted, always uses the word for a thorn or brier, and always as a picture of something God allows to prick and harass his people, sometimes a painful ailment, sometimes hostile neighbors. That is the background most scholars think Paul drew on.

The heavier sense was still alive in Paul's day. Writers attacking the early Christians used this very word, and its related verb, to sneer at the cross as a thing of impalement. Some readers think Paul knew both registers and let the word carry both at once: a thorn to ears tuned to the Greek Old Testament, a stake to ears tuned to the older epics.

2Co 12:7

What scholars say about skolops

The standard study of the word is Gerhard Delling's article in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (often misattributed to Heinrich Schlier), which takes "something pointed" as the base and stresses the classical weight of "stake." The lexical debate falls into three camps. Those who prefer "thorn / splinter" rest on the Greek closest to Paul: Moulton and Milligan made the decisive papyrological case from documents like a mother's note about a sore foot "from a splinter," and the Greek Old Testament uses the word only four times (Numbers 33:55; Hosea 2:6; Ezekiel 28:24; Sirach 43:19), every time for a thorn or brier and never for an impaling pole; Murray Harris, Margaret Thrall, Victor Furnish, and Alfred Plummer follow this. Those who prefer "stake / pale" rest on the dominant classical sense: David Park's Novum Testamentum study, Gerhard Delling, Ulrich Heckel, David Garland (who translates "stake in the flesh"), and Ralph Martin read the image as violent. A third group (Bultmann, Barnett, Mark Seifrid, Verena Jegher-Bucher) declines to choose, with Jegher-Bucher arguing Paul exploits both registers at once. The separate and much larger debate over what Paul's affliction actually was (physical illness in general being the majority view, with specific proposals of eye disease, malaria, epilepsy, a human opponent, spiritual torment, or demonic affliction, and a firm rejection across confessions of the medieval "sexual temptation" reading) interacts with the lexical fork but is not settled by it; Harris and Thrall agree the historical referent is irrecoverable.

Where scholars disagree about skolops

Whether σκόλοψ in 2 Corinthians 12:7 means a thorn or splinter (a small sharp object lodged in the flesh) or a stake or impaling pole (a far heavier and more violent image).

  • majorityA thorn or splinter. The Greek closest to Paul, the Greek Old Testament and the everyday papyri and medical writers, uses the word this way; in the Greek Old Testament it is always a thorn or brier and never an impaling pole, and Paul is reading and quoting that Bible.; James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), p. 578; Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2005), pp. 854-861; Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (ICC, 2000), 2:809-810
  • minorityA stake or pale. The dominant sense across classical Greek is the sharpened pole or impaling stake, and the violence of Paul's surrounding language (a messenger of Satan that strikes him with its fist, prayed against three times) better fits the heavier image.; Gerhard Delling, "σκόλοψ," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 7:409-413; David M. Park, "Paul's σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί: Thorn or Stake?" Novum Testamentum 22 (1980): 179-183; David M. Garland, 2 Corinthians (NAC, 1999), p. 521
  • minorityThe ambiguity is deliberate or simply unresolvable, and Paul lets the word carry both a thorn (for readers tuned to the Greek Old Testament) and a stake (for readers tuned to the older epics) at once.; Verena Jegher-Bucher, "Der Pfahl im Fleisch," Theologische Zeitschrift 52 (1996): 32-41; Paul Barnett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, 1997), pp. 567-572

What Paul's "thorn in the flesh" actually refers to. This is a debate about the referent of his affliction, not about the dictionary meaning of the word, and it is not settled by resolving thorn-versus-stake.

  • majorityAn unspecified physical illness; the data are too thin to diagnose further, and the historical referent is irrecoverable.; Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2005), pp. 855-861; Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (ICC, 2000), 2:809-818; Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (Anchor Bible, 1984), pp. 547-550
  • minorityA specific ailment, most often an eye disease, malaria, or chronic facial pain.; Kenneth Berding, Paul's Thorn in the Flesh (Lexham Press, 2023)
  • minorityA human opponent. In the Greek Old Testament the word pictures hostile persons that God permits to harass his people (Numbers 33:55; Ezekiel 28:24), and the surrounding verbs take personal subjects.; Terence Y. Mullins, "Paul's Thorn in the Flesh," Journal of Biblical Literature 76 (1957): 299-303
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

  • Gerhard Delling, "σκόλοψ," Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 7:409-413lexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. σκόλοψlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 8.51lexicon
  • James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), p. 578lexicon
  • Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, 2005), pp. 854-861commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (ICC, 2000), 2:809-818commentary
  • Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (Anchor Bible, 1984), pp. 547-550commentary
  • Ralph P. Martin, 2 Corinthians (WBC, rev. 2014), pp. 413-417commentary
  • David M. Garland, 2 Corinthians (NAC, 1999), p. 521commentary
  • Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians (ICC, 1915), pp. 348-350commentary
  • David M. Park, "Paul's σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί: Thorn or Stake?" Novum Testamentum 22 (1980): 179-183article
  • Ulrich Heckel, "Der Dorn im Fleisch," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 84 (1993): 65-92article
  • Terence Y. Mullins, "Paul's Thorn in the Flesh," Journal of Biblical Literature 76 (1957): 299-303article
  • Verena Jegher-Bucher, "Der Pfahl im Fleisch," Theologische Zeitschrift 52 (1996): 32-41article
  • Kenneth Berding, Paul's Thorn in the Flesh (Lexham Press, 2023)monograph

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

All attested forms of σκόλοψ

nominative m s

σκόλοψ

2Co 12:7