Greek word · G1986
ἐπισπάω
epispaō
to uncircumcise
In general Greek it means 'to draw or pull toward, draw after, draw on', as when drawing a cloak over oneself or attracting something. Later medicine and scholarship call this epispasm after this word.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
ἐπι-σπάω, -ῶ
[in LXX: Isaiah 5:18 (מָשַׁךְ), etc. ;]
to draw on: mid., in peculiar sense of effacing signs of Judaism (cf. 1Ma.1:15, FlJ, Ant., xii, 5, i; see Thayer, see word), to become as uncircumcised: 1 Corinthians 7:18.†
(AS)
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 7:18
- Range of meaning
In general Greek it means 'to draw or pull toward, draw after, draw on', as when drawing a cloak over oneself or attracting something. In the middle voice, in medical and Jewish settings, it became the technical term for 'drawing the foreskin forward': stretching remaining skin or cutting and pulling it over the glans to hide circumcision. Later medicine and scholarship call this epispasm after this word.
- Against the English
'Become uncircumcised' (KJV, BSB, WEB, NASB-type renderings) gives the result and hides the act. Many readers take the phrase as a puzzling figure of speech ('how can anyone become uncircumcised?'), or as meaning 'abandon Judaism' in some abstract sense. Paul is naming a known physical procedure. ESV-type renderings ('remove the marks of circumcision') and NLT ('try to reverse it') come closer to the deliberate action.
- How it drifted
The procedure is unfamiliar today, so translators chose a neutral phrase. That phrase hides how concrete and costly a step Paul is ruling out.
- Used elsewhere in the period
This is the only use in the New Testament. 1 Maccabees 1:15 describes Hellenising Jews under Antiochus IV who built a gymnasium in Jerusalem and 'made foreskins for themselves' (ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς ἀκροβυστίας). Josephus (Antiquities 12.241) says they 'concealed the circumcision of their private parts' so they could look Greek when naked. The Roman medical writer Celsus (De Medicina 7.25.1, early 1st century AD) describes the operation step by step. Rabbinic texts call such a man mashukh, 'one who has been drawn', the Hebrew equivalent of this Greek term (e.g. Tosefta Shabbat 15:9; b. Yevamot 72a).
Where it appears
1 Corinthians · 1
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1 Corinthians 7:18 ἐπισπάσθω· he should become uncircumcised;
Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man still uncircumcised when called? He should not be circumcised.
Here: Literally 'let him not draw over (for himself)'. It is a technical term for stretching or surgically pulling skin forward over the glans so that the person no longer looks circumcised. The middle voice means doing it to or for oneself. Paul is naming a real procedure, not using a figure of speech.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.