ἀπαύγασμα

From the study of Hebrews 1:3

Range of meaning

From apaugazō, 'to shine forth, flash out'. The word ending -ma usually names the result of an action, so the word means 'what shines out'. It can be read two ways. (1) Active: the radiance or effulgence a light-source gives off, as sunlight is to the sun. (2) Passive: a reflection, light thrown back from a surface. The word is rare and appears only here in the New Testament.

Against the English

KJV and YLT have 'brightness', BSB, WEB and ESV 'radiance', NLT 'radiates'. All take the active sense. A few scholars prefer 'reflection'. English readers miss that this was a known technical word from Jewish wisdom writing.

Used elsewhere in the period

Wisdom of Solomon 7:25–26 (Jewish, Greek, roughly 1st century BC) says of divine Wisdom: she is 'a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty… an apaugasma of eternal light, a spotless mirror of God's working, and an image of his goodness.' The author of Hebrews is almost certainly drawing on this tradition. Philo of Alexandria uses apaugasma for the human mind as a 'radiance' of the divine nature (On the Creation 146) and of the world as an apaugasma of holy things (On Planting 50). Later Greek Church Fathers read Hebrews 1:3 as 'light from light', a phrase that entered the Nicene Creed.