StrongerBible

suntribō

συντρίβω

GreekG4937break, bruise, ...

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 12:20Mrk 5:4Mrk 14:3Luk 4:18Luk 9:39Jhn 19:36Rom 16:20Rev 2:27
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What suntribō means

to shatter: to break something by crushing it, leaving it smashed, mangled, or ruined

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This verb describes force that leaves something in pieces. It is what a violent man does to the iron shackles holding him (Mark 5:4), what a woman does to a sealed perfume jar so she can pour it out (Mark 14:3), and what an iron rod does to cheap clay pots (Revelation 2:27). The result is wreckage rather than a clean parting, which is why the matching noun built from the same root (σύντριμμα) names the ruin that is left behind rather than the blow that caused it.

Because the picture is crushing rather than cutting, the word moves easily from objects to people:

  • a reed already bent and mangled, still standing but past all use (Matthew 12:20)
  • a boy thrown down and battered by a spirit that will not release him (Luke 9:39)
  • people crushed in heart, whose inner life has caved in (Luke 4:18)
  • an enemy stamped flat under the feet of God's people (Romans 16:20)

Greek-speaking Jews used this verb constantly in their Bible to render the main Hebrew word for breaking and shattering (שָׁבַר), so the New Testament writers inherit both the word and the passages it filled. Matthew 12:20 draws on Isaiah, where the crushed reed is spared; Luke 4:18 draws on Isaiah again, where the crushed in heart are healed; and John 19:36 draws on the rule that no bone of the Passover lamb was to be broken, applied to Jesus on the cross.

Greek had several ways to say "break," and the differences are worth hearing. Snapping something rigid in two is κατάγνυμι, which stands right beside this verb in Matthew 12:20: the reed is already crushed, and Jesus refuses to finish it off by snapping it. Tearing something open along a seam is ῥήγνυμι. Pulling a loaf apart by hand at the table is κλάω. This is the brutal one of the set.

Nuances

1ato smash something solid so that it comes apart: a jar, a chain, a pot, a bone
TranslatabilityDirect
Mrk 5:4Mrk 14:3Jhn 19:36Rev 2:27
1bto batter or maul something so that it is ruined but still in one piece
Mat 12:20Luk 9:39
1cto crush an enemy: to break a hostile power for good
Rom 16:20
1dto be crushed inwardly: broken in heart and spirit
Luk 4:18
Luk 4:18

Whether the clause "to heal the brokenhearted" in Luke 4:18, which carries this occurrence of the verb, is original to Luke or a later scribal assimilation to the Septuagint text of Isaiah 61:1.

  • majorityThe clause is a secondary addition harmonizing Luke's citation to the fuller Septuagint text of Isaiah 61:1, and is absent from the earliest and best witnesses.; Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed., at Luke 4:18; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible)
  • minorityThe clause belongs to the text of Luke, being supported by the great mass of later Greek manuscripts.; Maurice A. Robinson and William G. Pierpont, The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform

What scholars say about suntribō

BDAG glosses the verb as "to break something into pieces, shatter, smash, crush," with a derived sense of breaking someone's power, and LSJ documents the same range in classical Greek, running from rubbing and pounding through shattering and wearing down. The word is very common in the Septuagint, where it renders שׁבר most often and also רצץ and דכא; that background accounts for its concentration in New Testament citations of Isaiah, at Matthew 12:20 (Isaiah 42:3) and Luke 4:18 (Isaiah 61:1). John 19:36 applies the Passover regulation of Exodus 12:46 and Numbers 9:12, verbally close to Psalm 34:20, to the unbroken bones of the crucified Jesus. At Luke 4:18 the clause containing the verb is text-critically insecure: Metzger records the committee's judgment that it is an assimilation to the fuller Septuagint text of Isaiah 61:1, and Fitzmyer follows the shorter reading, while the Byzantine tradition retains it. On Romans 16:20 commentators widely hear an echo of Genesis 3:15, though the Septuagint uses a different verb there, so the allusion is conceptual rather than verbal (Cranfield; Dunn).

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. συντρίβωlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. συντρίβωlexicon
  • Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed.commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible)commentary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans (International Critical Commentary)commentary
  • James D. G. Dunn, Romans 9-16 (Word Biblical Commentary)commentary

All attested forms of συντρίβω

aorist active participle nominative f s

συντρίψασα

Mrk 14:3

future active indicative 3s

συντρίψει

Rom 16:20

perfect passive infinitive

συντετρῖφθαι

Mrk 5:4

perfect passive participle accusative m p

συντετριμμένους

Luk 4:18

perfect passive participle accusative m s

συντετριμμένον

Mat 12:20

present active participle nominative n s

συντρῖβον

Luk 9:39

present passive indicative 3s

συντρίβεται

Rev 2:27

second-future passive indicative 3s

συντριβήσεται

Jhn 19:36