Greek word · G4096
πιότης
piotēs
richness
Fatness, richness, abundance. In plants it is the rich sap or oil, and for an olive specifically its oil. In the Greek Old Testament it often stands for the best part of something, the richness of God's blessing.
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 Romans 11:17
- Range of meaning
Fatness, richness, abundance. In plants it is the rich sap or oil, and for an olive specifically its oil. In the Greek Old Testament it often stands for the best part of something, the richness of God's blessing.
- Against the English
KJV/YLT "fatness" is literal but now sounds unpleasant. WEB "richness," BSB "nourishment" and NIV "nourishing sap" each take one part of the meaning. NASB "rich root" folds it into the root.
- How it drifted
In older English "fatness" meant richness and plenty ("the fatness of the earth," Gen 27:28 KJV). Modern English hears obesity or unhealthiness, so the KJV wording now makes many readers think of the wrong thing.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In Judges 9:9 (Septuagint) the olive tree refuses to be king of the trees: "Shall I leave my fatness (piotēs), by which God and men are honored?" That is the olive's oil, used to honor God and men. Psalm 63:5 (LXX 62:6) has "as with fat and richness." Jeremiah 11:16, where Israel is a "green olive tree" whose branches are broken, is the closest prophetic background to Paul's picture.
Where it appears
Romans · 1
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Romans 11:17 πιότητος fatness
Now if some branches have been broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others to share in the nourishment of the olive root,
Here: In an olive, "fatness" is its oil, the rich sap that makes it valuable. "Of the root of the fatness" most likely means "the root from which the tree's richness flows," so the rich root.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.