ὀνίνημι

From the study of Philemon 1:20

Range of meaning

Active: to profit, benefit, help someone. Middle: to get benefit, enjoyment or advantage from someone or something. The wish form ὀναίμην ('may I have profit or joy of...') was a set phrase in Greek, a warm, polite way to say 'may I enjoy the good of you.'

Against the English

KJV and WEB say 'joy'. YLT says 'profit'. BSB, NIV and NASB say 'benefit'. 'Joy' catches the warmth but loses the sense of gain or return. 'Profit' or 'benefit' keeps the money language of verses 18–19 and keeps the link to the name Onesimus.

How it drifted

'Joy' came into English through the KJV's 'let me have joy of thee', an Early Modern English phrase meaning roughly 'let me have the good of you.' Today 'joy' sounds like a feeling of happiness and loses the sense of getting a return.

Used elsewhere in the period

Used from Homer on for 'help, benefit.' The wish ὀναίμην is common in classical and later letters. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in the early 2nd century, uses ὀναίμην again and again ('may I have joy of you', e.g. To the Ephesians 2:2, To the Magnesians 2, To Polycarp 1:1, 6:2). In To the Ephesians he uses it only a few lines after naming Ephesus's bishop, who was called Onesimus (Eph. 1:3). The verb also appears in the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament (e.g. Sirach 30:2, of a father who 'will profit' from a well-disciplined son). This is its only New Testament use.