an example: a particular case put on display so that others copy it or take warning from it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The word names something set where people can see it and act on it. It is not a random sample picked to illustrate a point. It is a case deliberately put in front of others, which is why Jesus can wash his disciples' feet and then say he has given them one of these, so that they will do the same thing.
The same noun works in both directions, and that is its most useful feature:
It can be a model worth copying, as with the prophets who kept faith while they suffered badly.
It can be a warning case, as with towns burned to ash so that later generations would see where a godless life ends.
English keeps those two apart by different phrasing, "follow the example" against "let that be a warning," but Greek uses one noun for both. What decides the direction is not the word but the outcome of the person or place on display. A near relative narrows the picture to a writing lesson, the copybook line a child traces over (ὑπογραμμός), while another simply means an exhibit with no built-in call to imitate (δεῖγμα).
Nuances
1aa model to imitate: an action or a life set before people so that they do the same
Jhn 13:15Jas 5:10
1ba warning case: someone whose ruin is put on show so that others avoid the same road
Heb 4:11*2Pe 2:6
2
a copy: something built to stand in for a greater original it represents
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
In two places in Hebrews the word does something different. The priests at the earthly tent are said to serve at a copy and shadow of heavenly things, and the objects that had to be cleansed with blood are called copies of the things in heaven. Here the word is not a model anyone imitates. It is the lesser thing that stands for a greater one.
That is a surprise, because a word for an example normally names the thing being copied, not the copy. In the very same verse Hebrews uses a different word for the original plan God showed Moses on the mountain (τύπος), so the two words sit on opposite sides of the relationship: one is the design, the other is what was built from it. The verse after the second one reaches for yet another word for the same earthly sanctuary (ἀντίτυπος).
Scholars read the language in more than one way. Some hear a familiar Greek picture of an earthly imitation of a heavenly reality, reinforced by the paired word for shadow (σκιά). Others argue the word keeps its ordinary force of a rough sketch, so that Hebrews means the earthly sanctuary was a first outline of what God would finally do, rather than a dim replica of something already standing above.
Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Disputed
Whether ὑπόδειγμα in Hebrews 8:5 and 9:23 denotes a derivative copy of a pre-existing heavenly archetype, or a preliminary sketch that foreshadows an eschatological reality not yet realized.
majorityThe term is broadly Platonizing: the earthly cult is a secondary copy of the transcendent heavenly archetype, a reading reinforced by the pairing with σκιά in 8:5 and by ἀντίτυπα in 9:24.; BDAG, s.v. ὑπόδειγμα; H. W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia)
minorityThe vocabulary is eschatological rather than Platonic: ὑπόδειγμα retains its ordinary sense of an outline or sketch, marking the earthly sanctuary as a provisional foreshadowing of what God will bring about.; L. D. Hurst, "How 'Platonic' are Heb. viii.5 and ix.23f.?", Journal of Theological Studies 34 (1983): 156-168
In Hebrews it names the earthly sanctuary and its rites as a standing representation of realities in heaven.Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Both
Both describe a thing made to correspond to a greater original beyond itself.Heb 9:23
Only copy
English "copy" suggests a duplicate that matches its original point for point, or even a counterfeit, while the Greek allows a rough outline rather than a faithful reproduction.
“pattern”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“sketch”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How hupodeigma differs from similar Greek words
τύποςthe impression or the model itself, and often the original that a copy is made from, where this word is the specimen or copy set out to be looked at
Names the earthly copy or replica of a heavenly original, the sanctuary as a "copy and shadow" of the true things, the sketch of the realities in heaven. Here the word is the imitation, the exact opposite pole from the archetype that the other word marks in the very same verse.Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Both
Both can be held up as an example to be imitated, a model set before people so they will do likewise. One offers Paul himself as a "pattern" to follow; the other is Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet, given as an "example" that they should do as he did.Php 3:17Jhn 13:15
Both can be a warning example, a case exhibited so that others do not repeat it. Israel's downfall in the wilderness is set out as a warning, and by the same word the wilderness generation and Sodom are made cautionary specimens of judgment.1Co 10:6Heb 4:112Pe 2:6
Names the physical impress or mark left by a blow or stamp, the concrete dent in a surface. Thomas insists on seeing and touching the "mark" of the nails in Jesus' hands. This bodily, tangible sense never belongs to the other word.Jhn 20:25
Carries the forward-pointing sense of a "type": an earlier person or event that prefigures a later reality. Adam is called a "type" of the One to come, and Israel's wilderness history is written down as "types" for later readers. The other word has no such prefiguring, typological force.Rom 5:141Co 10:6
Denotes the original pattern or blueprint from which a copy is made, the design shown to Moses on the mountain after which the tabernacle was built. Here it is the archetype itself, not the replica made from it.Heb 8:5Act 7:44
Can mean a carved figure or image fashioned as an idol, the "figures" Israel made in order to worship them. The other word is never used of a manufactured cult image.Act 7:43
ὑπογραμμόςthe copybook line a child writes over, so it pictures imitation as tracing, and it is used only of Christ's suffering as the line to follow
Works just as readily in reverse, as a warning: Israel's collapse in the wilderness is a pattern of disobedience to steer clear of, and the ruin of Sodom is set out as a pattern for people who live without God.Heb 4:112Pe 2:6
Can name a physical thing that copies something greater, with no conduct to imitate at all: the earthly tent and its furnishings are a rough sketch of heavenly realities.Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Both
Both name a pattern deliberately placed in front of others so they will reproduce it in their own conduct: Jesus washes his disciples' feet so that they will do the same, and Christ suffers so that believers will take the same road.Jhn 13:151Pe 2:21
Both are used of patient endurance held up for imitation, whether the prophets who kept going under hardship or Christ who kept silent under unjust treatment.Jas 5:101Pe 2:21
English Bibles usually render both as "example", so a reader in translation cannot see which of the two words is behind the verse.1Pe 2:21Jhn 13:15
Pictures a line of letters written out for a pupil to copy over, so the following it asks for is close and step by step: Peter says Christ left this pattern so that his readers would walk in his very footsteps.1Pe 2:21
Its one New Testament use holds up Christ himself, and specifically his patience while being treated unjustly, so the word names a good model to reproduce rather than a fate to avoid.1Pe 2:21
δεῖγμαthe bare exhibit or specimen, used of Sodom's punishment simply being on show, without this word's built-in sense of a model to learn from
Covers a model deliberately set in front of people so that they will do the same thing, as with the washing of feet and with prophets who kept faith while they were badly treated.Jhn 13:15Jas 5:10
Runs the other way just as easily, naming a pattern of failure that the audience is told to steer clear of, with the people addressed and their conduct clearly in view.Heb 4:112Pe 2:6
Stretches to something no exhibit of judgment ever means: a copy that stands in for a greater original, as when the earthly tent and the objects cleansed with blood are called representations of heavenly things.Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Both
Both are English "example" in the sense of a real case put where people can see it and learn from it, and both words are used of the burnt towns of Sodom and Gomorrah in exactly that role.Jud 1:72Pe 2:6
In both, God set the case up rather than a speaker picking a handy illustration. The towns were destroyed and left standing as they are, and each writer simply reports what that event now serves as for later readers.Jud 1:72Pe 2:6
Names the exhibit itself, the visible leftovers of a sentence already carried out. Jude points at towns that were burned and left where anyone can see them, so the reader is looking at wreckage produced as proof.Jud 1:7
What is on show is the punishment rather than a way of living. Jude ties the word to the fire, so the thing exhibited is a penalty made visible, not a course of action that anyone is being handed to copy or to avoid.Jud 1:7
ἀντίτυποςthe thing that answers to another as its counterpart, used in the next verse of Hebrews for the same earthly sanctuary, while this word keeps the idea of something put on display
Names a person or act deliberately held up for others to copy, which is why it is usually rendered "example": Jesus washing his followers' feet in John 13:15, and the prophets who waited patiently in James 5:10.Jhn 13:15Jas 5:10
Works just as readily as a warning, a case that shows what happens to people who go the same way: Israel refusing to enter God's rest in Hebrews 4:11, and the burned cities in 2 Peter 2:6.Heb 4:112Pe 2:6
Both
Both are used for Israel's earthly sanctuary as something shaped after a heavenly original: Hebrews 9:24 calls the holy place made by hands a match for the true one, and Hebrews 8:5 and Hebrews 9:23 call what the priests serve a copy of the heavenly things.Heb 9:24Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Can name the later, greater reality rather than the earlier sketch: in 1 Peter 3:21 the water of baptism is the thing that the water Noah passed through was pointing toward, so the match runs forward in time.1Pe 3:21
Says only that two things answer to each other and asks nothing of the reader: in Hebrews 9:24 it simply observes that the holy place built by hands lines up with the true one, with no instruction to follow or avoid attached.Heb 9:24
σκιάa shadow, the shape of a thing without its substance, paired with this word in Hebrews but stressing thinness rather than something deliberately made to represent
Names a pattern of behavior deliberately set in front of people so they will do the same thing. The point is imitation, which is why English "example" fits; a shadow is never held up to be copied.Jhn 13:15Jas 5:10
Works just as readily as a warning case, a story of people whose ruin now stands as a specimen of what happens to those who go the same way.2Pe 2:6Heb 4:11
Can name a thing built on purpose to represent a greater original, a replica made to a given plan. Nobody makes a shadow; it simply falls where the light is blocked.Heb 9:23
Both
Both can say that something is not the real thing but points beyond itself to it. Hebrews stacks the two words on the same object, the priestly service at the earthly tent, because each in its own way calls that service a lesser stand-in for the heavenly reality.Heb 8:5
Names a plain physical shadow or patch of shade, the dark shape a solid body throws when it blocks the light. The other word never describes anything you could stand in.Act 5:15Mrk 4:32
Pictures a deathly gloom that people live inside, a dark country where the light has not yet reached. Here it is a condition to be rescued from, not a model anyone is meant to study.Mat 4:16Luk 1:79
Carries the sting of having the shape of something real with none of its substance, so it can never finish the work the real thing does. The insubstantial note is what makes English "shadow" fit, and the other word does not carry it.Col 2:17Heb 10:1
hupodeigma in the other biblical languages
תַּבְנִיתHebrew“pattern”the Hebrew word for the building plan shown to Moses, the original that the earthly copy follows, where the Greek word in Hebrews names the copy rather than the plan
Its ordinary use is a person's conduct held up so that others do the same: Jesus washes feet and says he has handed them a model, and the prophets are put forward as the case to follow for patience under hard treatment. The Hebrew word is never someone's behavior in this way.Jhn 13:15Jas 5:10
It works just as easily in reverse, as a warning case: Sodom and Gomorrah are burned to ash and left on show for the ungodly, and the wilderness generation becomes the pattern of refusal that later readers are told not to repeat.2Pe 2:6Heb 4:11
When it does name a copy, the original is invisible and in heaven, and the copy is ranked below it: the priests serve at something Hebrews calls a copy and a shadow, and those earthly holy things needed cleansing while the heavenly ones needed a better sacrifice.Heb 8:5Heb 9:23
Both
The two words meet on the same subject, the tent Moses built. The Hebrew word is the plan he is shown on the mountain and told to build by, and the Greek word is what Hebrews calls the resulting sanctuary, a copy of heavenly things, in the very sentence that quotes that command to build by what he was shown.Exo 25:9Exo 25:40Heb 8:5
Both name a lesser thing that stands in for a greater one and points back to it. The altar built by the Jordan is a look-alike of the LORD's altar, built for no sacrifice but only as evidence, and the earthly holy places are stand-ins for the ones in heaven.Jos 22:28Heb 9:23
In both languages the word carries an instruction as much as a description: something is put in front of you to be looked at and then matched. Ahaz sends home the design of the altar he saw so that one like it can be made, and Jesus gives a model so that his disciples will do as he did.2Ki 16:10Jhn 13:15
It is the word for a builder's plan handed over before construction starts, to be followed exactly: the plan of the tent and of every one of its vessels, and the written plans David gives Solomon for the porch, the courts, the treasuries, and the gold chariot of the cherubim.Exo 25:91Ch 28:111Ch 28:121Ch 28:181Ch 28:19
It names the carved or molded shape of a living creature, which is why it turns up in the laws and songs against idols: no figure of a male or female, of an animal, a bird, a crawling thing, or a fish, and Israel trading its glory for the figure of a grass-eating ox.Deu 4:16Deu 4:17Deu 4:18Psa 106:20Isa 44:13
It can be the bare outline of something glimpsed rather than built, the shape of a thing seen in a vision: what reaches out and takes the prophet by the hair is only the shape of a hand, and the same shape of a human hand shows under the wings of the cherubim.Ezk 8:3Ezk 10:8
It also serves as a plain comparison for good craftsmanship, with no religious weight at all: daughters shaped like the corner pillars cut for a palace, and animal shapes scratched all around a wall.Psa 144:12Ezk 8:10
What scholars say about hupodeigma
ὑπόδειγμα is a Hellenistic formation that displaced classical παράδειγμα; the Atticist Phrynichus censured it, and BDAG registers it as post-classical usage, well attested in the papyri for a specimen or model set out for inspection (Spicq). BDAG divides the New Testament data in two: (1) an example, model, or pattern for conduct, including the cautionary specimen (John 13:15;James 5:10;2 Peter 2:6;Hebrews 4:11); and (2) an outline, sketch, or symbol of something else (Hebrews 8:5; 9:23). The second is lexically anomalous, since the noun ordinarily denotes the exemplar rather than its reproduction, and Hebrews 8:5 sets it opposite τύπος in the citation of Exodus 25:40, where the Septuagint renders תַּבְנִית by τύπος. Attridge reads the Hebrews idiom as broadly Platonizing, the earthly cult being derivative of a transcendent archetype; Hurst argues in a well-known article that the terminology is eschatological rather than Platonic, ὑπόδειγμα functioning as a provisional sketch of what is yet to be realized. Ellingworth surveys both and favors a modest "copy" rendering while resisting a fully Platonic scheme. Louw and Nida likewise separate the paraenetic sense (domain 58) from the representational use in Hebrews.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ὑπόδειγμαlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ὑπόδειγμαlexicon
C. Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. ὑπόδειγμαlexicon
J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. ὑπόδειγμαlexicon
H. W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia)commentary
P. Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NIGTC)commentary
L. D. Hurst, "How 'Platonic' are Heb. viii.5 and ix.23f.?", Journal of Theological Studies 34 (1983): 156-168article