Greek word · G578

ἀποβλέπω

apoblepō

to look ahead

To look away from everything else and fix one's attention on something; to pay close regard to; to keep one's eyes on a goal or model.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. · Updated October 23, 2026

What it means

ἀπο-βλέπω

[in LXX for פָּנָה, etc. ;]

to look away from all else at one object; hence, to look steadfastly: Hebrews 11:26 (cf. ἀφοράω).†

(AS)

From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

Range of meaning: To look away from everything else and fix one's attention on something; to pay close regard to; to keep one's eyes on a goal or model.
Against the English: KJV's "had respect unto" meant "looked toward" in 1611 but now sounds like "admired." BSB/NIV/NLT "looking ahead" adds a sense of the future that fits the context but is not in the verb itself. ESV/WEB "looked to" is plainest.
How it drifted: In KJV's day "respect" still kept its Latin sense of respicere, "to look back at, regard"; that sense has since faded.
Used elsewhere in the period: Classical and Hellenistic Greek use it for fixing the eyes on a model or standard. It does not appear elsewhere in the NT, but Hebrews 12:2 uses a near-synonym with the same prefix, aphorōntes eis… Iēsoun, "looking away to Jesus." The habit runs through ch. 11: Abraham "was waiting for the city" (11:10), the patriarchs "saw [the promises] from afar" (11:13), and Moses "endured as seeing him who is invisible" (11:27).

Hebrews · 1

Hebrews 11:26 ἀπέβλεπεν he was looking

He valued disgrace for Christ above the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his reward.

Here: Imperfect tense: he *kept on* looking, a sustained fixed gaze. The prefix *apo-* ("away from") pictures turning the eyes away from what is near (Egypt's treasures) toward something else. It appears only here in the New Testament.

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