to give, grant, or forgive freely as an act of grace, expecting nothing in return
This verb is built directly on the grace-word charis (favor, grace), and it names the action that grace performs: freely handing something over as a favor, with no thought of repayment. What the "something" is decides how English renders it. When the gift is a thing, the word means to bestow or grant graciously. When it is a person, it means to hand someone over as a favor. When it is a debt, it means to cancel. When it is a wrong, it means to forgive.
Because one word covers all four, the New Testament writers can let grace flow from one to the next. Paul in particular chose this grace-word over the plainer words for "give" and "forgive" so that ordinary acts of giving and pardoning would carry the weight of God's own graciousness. Forgiveness, in this light, is simply grace applied to a debt or an offense: pardon is a kind of gift.
The forgiveness sense is the New Testament's own contribution. Earlier Greek used the word freely for kings granting favors, cancelling taxes, and releasing prisoners, but it was Paul (and Luke, who writes in his shadow) who first made it a settled term for God forgiving human sin in Christ, and then for Christians forgiving one another "as God in Christ forgave you."
Nuances
Whether the Father's granting of the name to the exalted Christ (following the "therefore" of this verse) carries any sense of reward for the Son's obedience, or is purely a free gift.
- majorityThe Father freely bestows the name as a pure gift; the word excludes any notion of a merited reward or wage.; P. T. O'Brien, The Epistle to the Philippians (NIGTC, 1991); G. D. Fee, Paul's Letter to the Philippians (NICNT, 1995)
- minorityThe bestowal is shaded as the Father's response to the Son's supreme service, closer to an honor freely conferred, though still preserving the giver's freedom.; J. Reumann, Philippians (Anchor Yale Bible 33B, 2008)