lame: unable to walk normally because of a disability in the feet or legs
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In the Gospels the word χωλός ("lame") appears in the standard lists of the afflicted whom Jesus heals, almost always beside the blind, the deaf, and the crippled (κυλλός). The word points to one specific disability: something is wrong with the feet or legs, so the person cannot walk, or walks only with pain and difficulty. When Jesus heals them the sign is that "the lame walk," a deliberate echo of the prophet Isaiah's picture of the age to come.
A couple of passages use the word for a person made lame rather than born so. In Jesus' hard saying about cutting off a foot that leads you into sin, it is "better to enter life lame" than to keep both feet and be lost, where being lame is the cost of losing the limb.
The one figurative use comes in Hebrews. There "what is lame" (a limping limb) stands for a believer or a congregation whose spiritual walk has grown weak and unsteady. The writer urges that this faltering limb not be wrenched out of joint but healed, carrying the picture of a lame leg over into the life of faith.
Nuances
1aliterally lame: crippled in the feet or legs so as to be unable to walk
names specifically a disability of the feet or legs that keeps a person from walkingAct 3:2
Both
both describe a person who cannot walk normallyMat 11:5
Only lame
in modern English "lame" has drifted into slang for "weak" or "unimpressive," a dismissive tone the Greek word never carries
“crippled”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“halt”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How chōlos differs from similar Greek words
κυλλόςcrippled or maimed, especially in the hands or through a deformed or missing limb, where χωλός points specifically to lameness in the feet or legs
παραλυτικόςparalyzed, powerless in the limbs generally, where χωλός names the narrower inability to walk
chōlos in the other biblical languages
פִּסֵּחַHebrew“lame”the standard Hebrew word for lame, which Greek χωλός regularly renders in the Old Testament
Stretches beyond the body to a faltering way of living: a community urged to straighten its paths so that what is limping is not wrenched out of joint. The Hebrew adjective never carries this sense of a wavering spiritual walk.Heb 12:13
Describes a condition someone might deliberately accept as the lesser loss, in the saying about entering life crippled rather than keeping a foot that trips you into ruin. The Hebrew word only ever reports a condition a person or animal already has.Mat 18:8Mrk 9:45
Marks the person whose restored walking becomes public evidence that God is at work, with onlookers watching a man who had never walked get up and go.Mat 15:31Act 3:2Act 3:11
Both
Both name a person whose legs or feet do not work, so that walking is halting or impossible, and the Greek word is the regular rendering of the Hebrew one.2Sa 9:13Act 14:8
Both stand beside "blind" in the standard pairing of people whose bodies keep them from ordinary participation, whether barred from the altar or carried to a healer and welcomed to a feast.Lev 21:18Mat 15:30Luk 14:13
Both belong to the language of promised restoration, where the one who could not walk leaps and is gathered home, and the New Testament reports that promise coming true using the same word the prophets used.Isa 35:6Jer 31:8Mat 11:5Luk 7:22
Applies to animals as well as people: a limping animal is disqualified as an offering, and bringing one is treated as contempt for God. The Greek word is never used of an animal.Deu 15:21Mal 1:8Mal 1:13
Names a bodily condition that legally bars a man from serving at the altar, one item in a list of defects that keep a priest from approaching.Lev 21:18
Works as a byword for helplessness that others exploit: defenders taunt an attacking king that cripples could hold the walls against him, a proverb likens useless legs to wise words in a fool's mouth, and a man pleads his bad feet as the reason he could not act.2Sa 5:6Pro 26:72Sa 19:26
What scholars say about chōlos
χωλός is a common Greek adjective, attested from Homer onward, for a person lame or halting in the feet. In the New Testament it belongs to the fixed lists of the afflicted (blind, lame, deaf, maimed) whom Jesus and the apostles heal, and the restoration of the lame to walking deliberately echoes the eschatological promise of Isaiah 35:6. The single figurative occurrence, the substantival neuter form in Hebrews 12:13, applies the image of a lame limb to a faltering member of the community; commentators such as Attridge read the medical picture of a dislocated joint against the exhortation to communal endurance.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. χωλόςlexicon
LSJ, s.v. χωλόςlexicon
Harold W. Attridge, Hebrews (Hermeneia, 1989)commentary