Greek word · G470
ἀνταποκρίνομαι
antapokrinomai
to contradict
To answer in return, especially to answer against: to reply in rebuttal, contradict, or dispute. The prefix ἀντί ("against, in return") is added to ἀποκρίνομαι ("answer"). Like many such verbs it is built in the middle voice, which in Greek often marks an action done for or toward oneself.
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
ἀντ-απο-κρίνομαι
(ἀντί, ἀποκρίνω), [in LXX: Judges 5:29, Job 16:9 (8) Job 32:12 (עָנָה)* ;]
to answer again, reply against: before πρός, with accusative of thing(s), Luke 14:6; with dative of person(s), Romans 9:20.†
(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
To answer in return, especially to answer against: to reply in rebuttal, contradict, or dispute. The prefix ἀντί ("against, in return") is added to ἀποκρίνομαι ("answer"). Like many such verbs it is built in the middle voice, which in Greek often marks an action done for or toward oneself. (BDAG: "answer in turn, reply against").
- Against the English
KJV/WEB "reply against" keeps the oppositional sense. BSB/NIV "talk back" is vivid, but in modern English it suggests a cheeky child. The Greek pictures something more formal: a party to a dispute lodging a counter-argument. ESV/NASB "answer back" sits between the two. NLT "argue with" catches the dispute well.
- How it drifted
"Talk back" has come to mean insolent backchat, so readers can hear a rebuke of bad manners. The Greek is about entering a dispute against God and putting God's justice on trial.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Rare. In the NT it appears elsewhere only in Luke 14:6, where the lawyers and Pharisees "could not answer back" to Jesus' legal argument about healing on the Sabbath. In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) it appears in Job: Elihu says none of Job's friends "answered back to his words" (Job 32:12; compare 16:8). That puts the word in Job's world of lawsuits against God.
Where it appears
Luke · 1
-
Luke 14:6 ἀνταποκριθῆναι to reply
And they were unable to answer these questions.
Romans · 1
-
Romans 9:20 ἀνταποκρινόμενος is answering against
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to Him who formed it, “Why did You make me like this?”
Here: "Answering back," made of "against" plus "answer." It means replying in order to rebut, the way an opponent in a dispute or a court case does. The present tense pictures someone in the middle of arguing with God, not someone quietly wondering.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.