Greek word · G4939

σύντροφος

syntrophos

brought up with

Literally 'nourished/reared together'. (1) A foster-brother, a child raised in the same household, sometimes nursed by the same wet-nurse. (2) A childhood companion.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

σύν-τροφος, -ου, ὁ

(συντρέφομαι, to be brought up together) [in LXX: 3Ki.12:24, 1Ma.1:6 R, 2Ma.9:29 * ;]

1. prop., one nourished or brought up with, a foster-brother: Acts 13:1 EV.

2. In Hellenistic usage, as a court term, an intimate friend of a king (see Deiss., BS, 305, 310 f.): Acts 13:1 (cf. also MM, xxiv).†

(AS)

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 Acts 13:1

Range of meaning

Literally 'nourished/reared together'. (1) A foster-brother, a child raised in the same household, sometimes nursed by the same wet-nurse. (2) A childhood companion. (3) In Hellenistic royal courts, an honorary title for a ruler's intimate friend or courtier, someone who had been raised with the prince.

Against the English

BSB, KJV, NASB and NIV: 'brought up with'. WEB and YLT: 'foster(-)brother'. ESV: 'lifelong friend'. The 'brought up with' versions keep the childhood sense. ESV leans toward the court-companion sense. No English rendering can carry both at once.

Used elsewhere in the period

1 Maccabees 1:6 speaks of Alexander the Great's 'nobles who had been brought up with him' (syntrophoi). 2 Maccabees 9:29 calls Philip the syntrophos of Antiochus Epiphanes. Hellenistic inscriptions use the word as a court title (noted by Deissmann). The Vulgate renders it conlactaneus, 'nursed with the same milk', i.e. foster-brother.

Where it appears

Acts · 1

  1. Acts 13:1 σύντροφος brought up —

    Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch), and Saul.

    Here: Literally 'nourished together'. It means someone raised alongside Antipas as a foster-brother or childhood companion. It was also an honorary title for a ruler's close courtier, so Manaen had been an insider at the court of the man who executed John the Baptist.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.