τραχηλίζω

From the study of Hebrews 4:13

Range of meaning

A verb built on trachēlos, 'neck', so literally 'to neck' someone. Its attested uses: (1) in wrestling, to seize an opponent by the neck and throw or pin him; (2) more broadly, to overpower, overthrow or bring down; (3) of sacrificial animals, possibly to bend back the neck so the throat lies open for the knife (this sense is argued but thinly attested); (4) by extension, to lay bare or expose, which is how most lexicons take it in Hebrews. The New Testament uses it only here.

Against the English

English versions say 'opened' (KJV), 'laid open' (WEB), 'open' (YLT), 'exposed' (BSB, ESV) or 'laid bare' (NIV, NASB). All give the sense of exposure correctly, but all lose the bodily picture of a neck in someone's grip: the helpless, held-down, nowhere-to-hide quality of the word.

How it drifted

Not really drift. The word was simply too concrete for a smooth English equivalent, so translators kept the result (exposure) and dropped the image (a neck held or bent back).

Used elsewhere in the period

Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish writer of the same period, uses the verb several times for being thrown down or overpowered, often with wrestling imagery (e.g. On the Cherubim 78; Life of Moses 1.297). It also occurs in other Hellenistic Greek of the period for wrestlers' holds. The sacrificial sense (bending back a victim's head) is proposed by some commentators, partly from the knife language of v. 12, but direct evidence for it is weaker. BDAG gives 'lay bare, expose' for Hebrews and notes the wrestling background.