to come to someone's aid by taking hold alongside them and carrying a share of the load
This is a picture word for helping. It describes coming to someone's aid not by doing a task for them from a distance, but by getting under the same weight and taking hold of your share, the way two people lift something heavy by each grabbing an end.
It is a strengthened form of the simpler and more common verb for helping (ἀντιλαμβάνω); the added piece stresses doing it together, side by side. In the Greek Old Testament it is the word for the seventy elders who help Moses "carry" the weight of the people so that he no longer bears them alone, and for God's hand that "helps" the king. The image behind it is a load shared between two sets of hands.
Both times it appears in the New Testament the picture is the same. Martha asks Jesus to tell Mary to take hold of the other end of the work with her (Luke 10:40), and Paul says the Spirit takes hold of the other end of our weakness (Romans 8:26). In each case one person is overwhelmed, and help means someone stepping in alongside to carry part of what cannot be carried alone.
Whether in Romans 8:26 the Spirit helps together WITH the believer, coming alongside our praying, or acts on the believer's behalf, in effect interceding in our place.
- contestedCooperative: the Spirit takes hold at the other end of our weakness and prays alongside us, not instead of us; every Septuagint and papyrus parallel describes a partner joining in, never a proxy acting in another's place.; John Calvin, Commentary on Romans, on 8:26; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Word Biblical Commentary, 1988), 475-480; Gordon D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence (1994), 575-586
- contestedOn our behalf: the Spirit's intercession is genuinely offered for us and is best described as a ministry performed on our behalf rather than simply merged with our own praying.; John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT, 1965); Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (NICNT, 1996), 523; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans (Anchor Bible, 1993)
Disputed
How much of the compound's built-in picture (taking hold at the far end of a shared load) is actually carried by the word, as against reading it as little more than an intensified "to help."
- majorityThe word genuinely pictures shared burden-bearing: help given by coming alongside and taking a share of the load, grounded in its makeup and its Greek Old Testament background.; BDAG, s.v. συναντιλαμβάνομαι; Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, 3:302-304; A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, on Romans 8:26
- minorityThe doubled prefixes are largely intensive, a common feature of the Greek of the period, so the word means little more than "to help" and the burden-sharing picture should not be pressed in every occurrence.; Gerhard Delling, λαμβάνω, in TDNT 4:15-16; James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961)