Greek word · G366
ἀνανήφω
ananēphō
to regain senses
Built from nēphō, 'be sober, not drunk', plus ana-, 'again'. Its basic sense is 'become sober again' after drink, and by extension 'come back to oneself, regain clear judgment' after any confusion, stupor or delusion (BDAG: 'become sober, come to one's senses').
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 2 Timothy 2:26
- Range of meaning
Built from nēphō, 'be sober, not drunk', plus ana-, 'again'. Its basic sense is 'become sober again' after drink, and by extension 'come back to oneself, regain clear judgment' after any confusion, stupor or delusion (BDAG: 'become sober, come to one's senses').
- Against the English
KJV 'recover themselves', BSB and most modern versions 'come to their senses', YLT 'awake'. 'Come to their senses' is close. 'Recover themselves' can sound to a modern reader like self-help, and it loses the image of a drunk person sobering up. 'Awake' moves the picture from drink to sleep.
- How it drifted
The English is not so much wrong as flattened. The intoxication picture has dropped out, and with it the suggestion that the false teaching acts on people like a drug that dulls judgment.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Absent from the LXX and appearing only here in the NT. It occurs in Hellenistic Greek for sobering up or recovering from a faint. In early Christian writing Ignatius uses it (Smyrnaeans 9.1) for coming back to soberness and repenting. Its root nēphō is a common early Christian call to watchfulness (1 Thess 5:6, 8; 2 Tim 4:5; 1 Pet 5:8, where staying sober is set against the devil's prowling).
Where it appears
2 Timothy · 1
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2 Timothy 2:26 ἀνανήψωσιν they may recover
Then they will come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, who has taken them captive to his will.
Here: The picture is of someone sobering up after being drunk or dazed. The form (aorist subjunctive) depends on 'perhaps' (mēpote) in verse 25, so it states a hope, not a certainty: 'and they may sober up.' This is the only place the word appears in the New Testament.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.