Greek word · G1858
ἑορτάζω
heortazō
to keep a festival
To hold or celebrate a religious festival, to keep holiday. It comes from heortē ('feast, festival') and covers the whole festival: gathering, eating together, rejoicing and the required observances.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 1 Corinthians 5:8
- Range of meaning
To hold or celebrate a religious festival, to keep holiday. It comes from heortē ('feast, festival') and covers the whole festival: gathering, eating together, rejoicing and the required observances.
- Against the English
'Keep the feast' (KJV, BSB, WEB) and 'celebrate the festival' (ESV, NASB 'feast') are both accurate. 'Feast' can suggest a single large meal to a modern reader. The Greek means taking part in a festival, which for Passover and Unleavened Bread lasted a week.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint, or LXX) it is the verb for Israel's festivals: Exodus 5:1 'that they may keep a feast to me in the wilderness'; Exodus 12:14 'you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD', said of Passover; Leviticus 23:39–41. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, Paul's contemporary, argues that for the virtuous 'the whole of life is a festival' (Special Laws 2.42–48). It is the nearest parallel to Paul's thought here.
Where it appears
1 Corinthians · 1
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1 Corinthians 5:8 ἑορτάζωμεν we may celebrate the feast
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.
Here: 'Let us keep the feast', a call to the whole church to do something together. The present tense points to something that goes on, 'let us keep on keeping the feast', not a single day. This is the only place the verb appears in the New Testament.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.