θεράπων

From the study of Hebrews 3:5

Range of meaning

A personal attendant or minister who serves a superior closely and is trusted, often in a dignified or sacred role. In classical Greek a therapōn can be a warrior's companion or squire: Patroclus is the therapōn of Achilles in Homer. It can also be a worshipper or minister of a god. It overlaps with doulos (slave) but is softer and more honourable. The stress falls on loyal personal service, not on being owned.

Against the English

"Servant" (KJV, BSB, ESV, NIV) is not wrong. Modern readers, though, tend to hear "menial worker" or "slave," and so take the verse as a put-down of Moses. YLT's "attendant" and the Vulgate's famulus (household attendant) come closer. "Minister" in its older sense, a trusted officer serving a king, may be the nearest English equivalent.

How it drifted

English "servant" has lost its courtly sense (as in "servant of the Crown"). After centuries of reading the Moses–Christ contrast in a law-versus-gospel frame, readers have also come to hear the word as a demotion.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) therapōn translates Hebrew ʿebed ("servant") most notably for Moses: Exod 4:10; 14:31 ("they believed God and Moses his therapōn"); Num 12:7; Josh 1:2 (in some witnesses); Wisdom 10:16 ("the soul of the Lord's therapōn"). Philo quotes Num 12:7 when he praises Moses (Allegorical Interpretation 3.103, 3.204). The early Christian letter 1 Clement calls Moses "the blessed, faithful therapōn in all the house" (17:5; 43:1). The word had become a title of honour for Moses.