προδίδωμι

From the study of Romans 11:35

Range of meaning

(1) To give or pay beforehand, to advance something (a payment, a deposit, a favour). (2) In a very common separate sense, to hand someone over: to betray or abandon (compare prodotēs, "traitor," Luke 6:16; Acts 7:52). Here only sense (1) fits.

Against the English

KJV, WEB, YLT, BSB and NASB all keep the "first" ("first given"). Some modern versions drop the idea of priority (for example ESV "given a gift"; NIV "ever given"). The point is not just giving. It is giving first, opening an exchange in which the other side is now in debt.

Used elsewhere in the period

In classical and Hellenistic Greek it is used for payments in advance and for favours done first. It appears nowhere else in the New Testament. Paul's Greek follows the Hebrew of Job 41:11 (MT 41:3), mî hiqdîmanî, "who has come before me / anticipated me?" The verb qādam means to be first or to get there before someone. The standard Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) of Job reads quite differently here ("who will stand against me and endure?"), so Paul's wording seems closer to the Hebrew or to a Greek version revised toward it.