StrongerBible

pheidomai

φείδομαι

GreekG5339“spare, refrain, ...”

Appears 10 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Act 20:29Rom 8:32Rom 11:21 (2×)1Co 7:282Co 1:232Co 12:62Co 13:22Pe 2:42Pe 2:5
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyFAY-doh-myverb

What pheidomai means

to hold back from the harm, hardship, or action you have every power to carry out

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This word always assumes power. Someone is in a position to strike, to destroy, to press an advantage, or to speak, and chooses to stop short. That is why it appears so often in the negative: the point of saying that God "did not spare" is that holding back was fully within reach.

The same restraint shows up in three settings across the New Testament:

  • God withholding, or refusing to withhold, the judgment that a person or a whole world has coming
  • a leader holding back a hard visit or a painful word to save someone the grief
  • a speaker stopping himself from claiming more than he could rightly claim

It is worth keeping this apart from mercy (ἐλεέω), which names the help actively given to someone in trouble. Sparing is the quieter half of the same instinct: nothing is handed over, something is simply not done. A person can be spared and never know it.

When Paul writes that God "did not spare his own Son," he is reaching back to the story of Abraham and Isaac, where the Greek Old Testament uses this very verb for Abraham not withholding his son (חָשַׂךְ). The echo turns the sentence into an argument: the God who held nothing back at that cost will hardly hold back anything smaller.

Nuances

1ato hold back from destroying or killing someone who lies within your power
Act 20:29Rom 8:32Rom 11:21 (2×)2Pe 2:42Pe 2:5
1bto spare someone trouble or painful treatment; to go easy on them
1Co 7:282Co 1:232Co 13:2
1cto hold yourself back from an act you could go ahead with
TranslatabilityDirect
2Co 12:6

What scholars say about pheidomai

The verb is middle in form throughout the New Testament and governs the genitive of whatever is spared. BDAG separates two uses: saving someone or something from loss, harm, or discomfort, and an absolute use meaning to refrain from an action, under which it files 2 Corinthians 12:6. LSJ documents the same range in classical Greek, where the word additionally covers being sparing or thrifty with a resource, a nuance surviving in the New Testament only at the related adverb in 2 Corinthians 9:6. Pauline usage clusters in contexts of judgment and apostolic discipline, and Romans 8:32 is widely read as an allusion to Genesis 22:16 in the Septuagint, where this verb renders the Hebrew verb for Abraham not withholding his son. Commentators on 2 Peter note that a single occurrence of the verb carries the first two members of the catalogue of judgments at 2:4 and 2:5.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. φείδομαιlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. φείδομαιlexicon
  • Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. φείδομαιtheological-dictionary
  • Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. φείδομαιtheological-dictionary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, International Critical Commentary, on Romans 8:32commentary
  • Richard J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, Word Biblical Commentary 50, on 2 Peter 2:4 and 2:5commentary
  • Margaret E. Thrall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, International Critical Commentary, on 2 Corinthians 12:6commentary

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

All attested forms of φείδομαι

aorist middle indicative 3s

ἐφείσατο

Rom 8:32, Rom 11:21, 2Pe 2:4, 2Pe 2:5

present middle-or-passive indicative 1s

φείδομαι

1Co 7:28, 2Co 12:6

future middle indicative 1s

φείσομαι

2Co 13:2

future middle indicative 3s

φείσεται

Rom 11:21

present middle-or-passive participle nominative m p

φειδόμενοι

Act 20:29

present middle-or-passive participle nominative m s

φειδόμενος

2Co 1:23