Greek word · G4290
προθύμως
prothymōs
eagerly
Readily, eagerly, with zeal or goodwill. It comes from prothumos, "ready, willing" (literally "with spirit forward"). The noun prothumia means readiness or eagerness (2 Corinthians 8:11–12, 19; 9:2).
Appears once in the Greek New Testament.
What it means
προθύμως
[in LXX: 2 Chronicles 29:34 (יָשָׁר לֵבָב), Tobit 7:8, al. ;]
eagerly, readily, with a ready mind: 1 Peter 5:2.†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Readily, eagerly, with zeal or goodwill. It comes from prothumos, "ready, willing" (literally "with spirit forward"). The noun prothumia means readiness or eagerness (2 Corinthians 8:11–12, 19; 9:2).
- Against the English
KJV/YLT "of a ready mind" is accurate though dated. ESV "eagerly" and NIV "eager to serve" are good. WEB's "willingly" blurs the word into the earlier hekousiōs and loses the extra note of zeal.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Greek honorific inscriptions often praise public benefactors for their prothumia, meaning their eager goodwill toward the city. Paul uses the noun for the Corinthians' eagerness to give to the collection for Jerusalem.
Similar words
Where it appears
1 Peter · 1
-
1 Peter 5:2 προθύμως· eagerly;
Be shepherds of God’s flock that is among you, watching over them not out of compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not out of greed, but out of eagerness;
Here: "With eager readiness": keen and wholehearted, the opposite of the profit motive. The point is that the work itself is what drives them, not what it pays.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.