Greek word · G5162
τροφός
trophos
nursing mother
A woman who nourishes and raises young children: a wet-nurse (very often a hired woman or a slave in Greek and Roman households), a nanny, or a mother in her nursing role. It comes from trephō, 'to feed, rear'.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
τροφός, -oῦ, ἡ
(τρέφω), [in LXX: Genesis 35:8, 2 Kings 11:2, 2 Chronicles 22:11 Isaiah 49:23 (יָנַק) * ;]
a nurse: 1 Thessalonians 2:7.†
(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 1 Thessalonians 2:7
- Range of meaning
A woman who nourishes and raises young children: a wet-nurse (very often a hired woman or a slave in Greek and Roman households), a nanny, or a mother in her nursing role. It comes from trephō, 'to feed, rear'.
- Against the English
KJV and YLT 'nurse' (now misleading); BSB, WEB 'nursing mother'; ESV 'nursing mother'; NLT 'mother feeding'. 'Nursing mother' captures the breastfeeding sense. 'Nurse' today suggests a medical professional.
- How it drifted
English 'nurse' originally meant a wet-nurse or nanny (the 1611 sense). Its main modern meaning, a trained medical carer, dates from the 19th century.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Greek OT (Septuagint): Deborah, Rebekah's nurse (Gen 35:8); Mephibosheth's nurse (2 Sam 4:4); 'queens shall be your nurses' (Isa 49:23). Moses complains that God expects him to carry Israel 'as a nurse carries a nursing child' (Num 11:12, related word tithēnos), an image of leadership as nursing. Wet-nursing contracts survive among Egyptian papyri. Philosophers (e.g. Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom) used the nurse as a picture for adapting one's teaching tenderly to the hearer.
Where it appears
1 Thessalonians · 1
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1 Thessalonians 2:7 τροφὸς a nursing mother
On the contrary, we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother caring for her children.
Here: A woman who feeds and rears small children, usually by breastfeeding. Often a hired wet-nurse. Here 'her own children' makes her their mother, or a nurse with her own babies: the most tender form of the image.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.