Greek word · G4944

συνωδίνω

synōdinō

to labor together

To suffer birth pangs together, to be in labor along with others. In classical Greek it can also mean, by extension, to share someone's anguish. It comes from ōdin, a birth pang (Matt 24:8; Mark 13:8; 1 Thess 5:3), and ōdinō, to be in labor (Gal 4:19, 27; Rev 12:2).

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

συν-ωδίνω

to be in travail together (Arist.): metapb. (Eur.), Romans 8:22.†

(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 Romans 8:22

Range of meaning

To suffer birth pangs together, to be in labor along with others. In classical Greek it can also mean, by extension, to share someone's anguish. It comes from ōdin, a birth pang (Matt 24:8; Mark 13:8; 1 Thess 5:3), and ōdinō, to be in labor (Gal 4:19, 27; Rev 12:2).

Against the English

KJV "travaileth in pain" was clear in 1611, when "travail" still meant labor in childbirth. Today "travail" sounds like general toil, or is misheard as "travel." Modern versions rightly say "pains of childbirth."

How it drifted

English "travail" lost its main childbirth sense and is now an archaic word for hardship.

Used elsewhere in the period

This is its only use in the New Testament. The birth-pang image for the painful turning point before God acts runs through Israel's prophets (Isa 13:8; 26:17–18; 66:7–9; Jer 4:31; Mic 4:9–10) and Jewish apocalyptic writing (1 Enoch 62:4; 4 Ezra 4:40–42; the Qumran Thanksgiving Hymn about a woman in labor, 1QH 11). Jesus calls the troubles before the end "the beginning of birth pains" (Mark 13:8). Later rabbinic texts speak of "the birth pangs of the Messiah" (b. Sanhedrin 98b).

Similar words

Where it appears

Romans · 1

  1. Romans 8:22 συνωδίνει it travails together

    We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until the present time.

    Here: From ōdin, "birth pang." It means undergoing labor pains together. Labor is agony that is going somewhere: it ends in a birth. This one word turns the groaning from a death rattle into the cry before a delivery.

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