to keep a living thing alive and growing by supplying its food: to feed, and so also to support, nurse, raise, or fatten
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary word for supplying food so that a life keeps going. God feeds the birds that neither sow nor reap, and in Jesus' picture of the judgment the righteous are the ones who fed him when he was hungry. The weight falls on the provision itself, the food that arrives and keeps the creature alive, rather than on the full stomach that results (the word for filling someone to satisfaction is χορτάζω) or on a herdsman leading animals out to pasture (βόσκω).
From there the word stretches naturally across a whole life, because feeding is how living things are brought along:
Feeding a child is how you raise one, so Luke can say that Jesus "had been brought up" in Nazareth.
The earliest feeding of all is at the breast, so a mother's breasts can be said to have "nursed" or not nursed.
Feeding an animal generously is how you fatten it, which is the sting in the charge that the rich have "fattened" their hearts.
Provision can be a standing arrangement rather than a single meal, so a whole region can be described as fed from the king's country.
One thread holds all of that together: someone or something is being kept going by food that comes from outside itself. That is why the word turns up so often with God as the one doing the feeding. He feeds the birds; he keeps the woman in Revelation supplied in the wilderness for a set stretch of time, which recalls the way Israel was fed in the desert. Older Hebrew language for sustaining someone through a long season (כּוּל) covers much the same ground.
Nuances
1ato give food to a living creature and so keep it alive
TranslatabilityDirect
Mat 6:26Mat 25:37Luk 12:24
1bto keep a person or a population supplied with food over a stretch of time; to support or maintain
Act 12:20Rev 12:6Rev 12:14
1cto feed an infant at the breast, to nurse
Luk 23:29
1dto bring a child up to adulthood, to raise
Luk 4:16
1eto fatten up, as an animal is fattened before it is killed
it can mean the deliberate fattening of a creature being readied for slaughter, a hard edge "nourish" does not carryJas 5:5
it can mean plainly bringing a child up to adulthoodLuk 4:16
Both
both describe sustaining a life with food over a period of time rather than in one sittingRev 12:6
Only nourish
modern English "nourish" leans toward nutrition and health, a clinical shade the Greek word does not have
English also nourishes hopes, friendships, and the soul, figures of speech where no food is involved at all
“brought up”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“nursed”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“fattened”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“supported”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How trephō differs from similar Greek words
βόσκωa herdsman's word: to put animals out to graze and tend them, so the picture is pasture and a keeper, where this word is about food supplied to keep any living thing going.
Reaches back to raising a person from childhood, so it can say where someone grew up rather than what someone ate.Luk 4:16
Describes God keeping creatures alive by supplying what they need, without any pasturing or herding in view.Mat 6:26Luk 12:24
Covers human beings being fed and nursed: giving food to someone who is hungry, and a mother's breast feeding an infant.Mat 25:37Luk 23:29
Stretches to long-term keeping alive, whether a whole region drawing its food supply from elsewhere or a fugitive sheltered and provisioned for a set span of time.Act 12:20Rev 12:6Rev 12:14
Can turn to fattening, feeding something up until it is plump, which James turns against the rich who have stuffed themselves for a day of slaughter.Jas 5:5
Both
Both are commonly rendered "feed" in English, and both name the act of supplying food that keeps a living creature alive.Luk 15:15Mat 6:26
In both, the feeder has an ongoing charge over the ones fed rather than handing out a single meal, so each word implies sustained responsibility.Jhn 21:17Rev 12:6
Names the herdsman's job of taking livestock out to grass and staying with them, so the people who do it are simply "the ones feeding" the animals.Luk 15:15Mat 8:33Mrk 5:14
Can be said of the animals themselves out at pasture, describing a herd grazing on a hillside with no keeper in view.Mat 8:30Mrk 5:11Luk 8:32
Becomes the picture for pastoral care of people, when the risen Jesus tells Peter to tend his lambs and his sheep.Jhn 21:15Jhn 21:17
χορτάζωto fill someone with food until the hunger is fully met, focused on the satisfied moment, where this word looks at the ongoing supply that keeps a life alive.
Puts the provider in view as the one doing the work, so the sentence names who supplies the food: God for the birds, the righteous for the hungry stranger, one region's farmland for a neighboring city.Mat 6:26Mat 25:37Luk 12:24Act 12:20
Covers care stretched over a measured period rather than a single meal, and the text can state how long the keeping alive lasted.Rev 12:6Rev 12:14
Reaches past food to the raising of a child, whether the years of growing up in one town or the nursing of an infant at the breast.Luk 4:16Luk 23:29
Can be turned against the well fed, describing self indulgence that plumps a person up like livestock kept for the day of slaughter.Jas 5:5
Both
Both are words for hunger actually met with food, not hunger merely felt, and both are used of the hungry crowds and the hungry poor.Mat 25:37Luk 6:21
Both are stretched from real eating into a picture of God caring for his people, so a promise of food becomes a promise of safety or of being satisfied at last.Rev 12:6Mat 5:6
Both are used of birds and beasts as readily as of people, which keeps ordinary eating in view even in the middle of a vision.Luk 12:24Rev 19:21
Marks the point of being full at the end of a meal, the moment when everyone present has had enough and the leftovers are gathered up.Mat 14:20Mrk 6:42Mrk 8:8Luk 9:17Jhn 6:26
Names the person who ends up full rather than the one handing out the food, which is why it also fits the shortage: there is not enough bread here to bring a crowd this size to the point of having had enough.Mat 15:33Mrk 8:4
Expresses the craving of the starving, a longing to get a stomach full of anything at all, even the pods fed to pigs or the scraps that fall from a rich man's table.Luk 15:16Luk 16:21
Moves off literal food to answer a hunger of another kind, promising that those who ache for what is right will be given their fill of it.Mat 5:6
Becomes a settled state a person can learn to live with, sitting alongside going without as one of the two conditions to be at peace in.Php 4:12
Can be spoken as a hollow blessing or a grim reversal: a wish tossed at the poor with no food attached, or scavenging birds gorged on the bodies of the fallen.Jas 2:16Rev 19:21
ἀνατρέφωa narrower relative that means specifically to bring a child up, used of Moses' upbringing and Paul's, while this word covers feeding of every kind and only sometimes means raising.
It covers God's ordinary provision of food for creatures that neither sow nor store, which is the point of both bird sayings.Mat 6:26Luk 12:24
It reaches to one-off acts of supply between strangers and even between whole territories: giving a meal to someone hungry, and a coastal region drawing its grain from the king's country.Mat 25:37Act 12:20
It is the word for nursing an infant at the breast, so its absence describes a woman who never bore a child.Luk 23:29
It can turn negative and mean fattening, feeding something up for the day it is slaughtered, which is how the rich are accused of treating their own hearts.Jas 5:5
It describes keeping a grown person alive in a place of refuge for a measured stretch of time, with no thought of childhood at all.Rev 12:6Rev 12:14
Both
Both are used for raising a child to maturity, and both serve to say where a person came from: Moses was reared in his father's house, Jesus in Nazareth.Act 7:20Luk 4:16
Both name care that runs over a stated span of time rather than a single moment, and the text tends to give the length: three months in hiding, or a thousand two hundred and sixty days in the wilderness.Act 7:20Rev 12:6
In both, the one being cared for is helpless and wholly dependent on someone else's provision: an abandoned baby taken up by a princess, birds fed by their Father.Act 7:21Mat 6:26
Every use is about rearing a person through the years of growth, never about putting food in front of an animal or a hungry stranger: Moses through his infancy, Paul through his youth.Act 7:20Act 22:3
It can describe taking in a child who is not your own and raising him as your son, so it covers what we would call adoption: Pharaoh's daughter reared the rescued baby as her own.Act 7:21
The care it names includes training and schooling, not only food and shelter: Paul's upbringing in Jerusalem is described as sitting under a named teacher and being instructed in the law.Act 22:3
ἐκτρέφωa relative that stresses feeding and caring for someone all the way through, used of fathers raising children and of the care a man gives his own body, where this word names the feeding itself.
It is the ordinary word for God feeding creatures that cannot provide for themselves: the birds and the ravens neither sow nor reap nor store anything, and God still feeds them.Mat 6:26Luk 12:24
It covers giving food to a hungry outsider, someone with no family claim on the giver at all, which is the act the righteous are commended for at the judgment.Mat 25:37
It reaches the scale of whole populations and their food supply: the cities of Tyre and Sidon depended on the king's territory for their grain, and the woman in the vision is kept supplied through a fixed span of days in a place prepared for her.Act 12:20Rev 12:6
It is used of an infant fed at the breast, so it can name nursing itself, which is why Jesus can speak of breasts that never nursed a child.Luk 23:29
It can turn dark and mean fattening up, the way a beast is fed before the day it is slaughtered, so James can use it against the rich who have gorged themselves.Jas 5:5
Both
Either word can name the long work of bringing a child up to adulthood rather than a single feeding: Jesus was brought up in Nazareth, and fathers are told to bring their children up.Eph 6:4Luk 4:16
Both describe care that keeps a living thing alive and growing over a stretch of time, and English versions render each of them "nourish".Eph 5:29Rev 12:14
In both, the one being cared for contributes nothing to the arrangement and simply receives what the caregiver supplies, whether that is a wife's body cared for as the husband's own or a woman sheltered and fed in the wilderness.Eph 5:29Rev 12:6
Both of its uses describe the settled care one owes to someone inside one's own household: a husband tending his own body, a father raising his own children. It never pictures the handing over of a meal.Eph 5:29Eph 6:4
It stretches past food to the shaping of a person: the raising Paul commands is done with the training and correction that belong to the Lord, so it covers a child's whole formation and not just what the child eats.Eph 6:4
It is paired with keeping something warm and treating it tenderly, which makes it a word for affectionate bodily care rather than for supplying provisions.Eph 5:29
trephō in the other biblical languages
כּוּלHebrew“to sustain”the Hebrew word for sustaining someone with food through a long stretch, as Joseph sustained his family in Egypt; the closest counterpart to the supporting side of this word.
Names the concrete act of feeding a living creature to keep it alive, whether birds, animals, or people.Mat 6:26Luk 12:24
Reaches into raising and rearing: bringing a child up from infancy, including nursing at the breast.Luk 4:16Luk 23:29
Can carry the darker shade of fattening, feeding richly to the point of self-indulgence.Jas 5:5
Both
Both name the ongoing work of providing food and support to keep someone alive, and the Greek word often carries the same idea of sustenance the Hebrew word does.Gen 45:11Mat 6:26
Reaches beyond food to holding or containing: a vessel or a space having room for what it takes in.1Ki 7:261Ki 8:27
Also means to bear up under or withstand something overwhelming, as in enduring a fearful day or holding in a hard word.Mal 3:2Jer 20:9
גָּדַלHebrew“to magnify”the Hebrew word for making something grow great, which is also how Hebrew says a parent raised a child; it looks at the growth achieved, where this word looks at the feeding that produces it.
What scholars say about trephō
BDAG and LSJ file the New Testament uses under one root with a spread of facets: to provide food, feed, nourish (Mt 6:26;Lk 12:24;Mt 25:37); to maintain or support, including the passive of being kept supplied (Acts 12:20, of the Tyrian and Sidonian territory fed from Herod's; Rev 12:6, 14, of the woman in the wilderness); to nurse (Lk 23:29, of the breasts that never fed a child); to bring up or rear (Lk 4:16, the perfect passive participle of Jesus' upbringing in Nazareth); and to fatten (Jas 5:5). LSJ documents the "maintain, support" sense richly in classical prose, and Moulton-Milligan cite papyri where the verb covers the maintenance of persons and households, which is the register behind Acts 12:20. Louw and Nida keep the feeding and rearing uses in the same broad physiological domain, treating the rearing sense as an extension of supplying nourishment rather than a separate lexeme. On Jas 5:5, Davids and other commentators discuss whether ἐθρέψατε τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν draws on the image of livestock fattened for the day of slaughter, given the following ὡς ἐν ἡμέρᾳ σφαγῆς, or whether it means no more than that the rich indulged themselves; the fattening reading is the more common one. The Revelation passages are widely read against the wilderness-provision tradition of Exodus and 1 Kings 17, where God feeds his own in a desert place.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. τρέφωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. τρέφωlexicon
Moulton & Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. τρέφωlexicon
Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 23 (Physiological Processes and States)lexicon
Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982)commentary