Greek word · G871
ἀφομοιόω
aphomoioō
to make like
From aphomoioō, 'to make like, to copy, to produce a likeness'. It is used of portraits, images and statues modelled on an original, and of comparing one thing to another. Here it is a perfect passive participle: 'having been made into a likeness' and remaining so.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
ἀφ-ομοιόω, -ῶ
[in LXX: Wisdom of Solomon 13:14, Ep. Jeremiah 1:5* ;]
to make like: pass., Hebrews 7:3.†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
From aphomoioō, 'to make like, to copy, to produce a likeness'. It is used of portraits, images and statues modelled on an original, and of comparing one thing to another. Here it is a perfect passive participle: 'having been made into a likeness' and remaining so.
- Against the English
KJV, WEB, YLT and the NASB keep the passive: 'made like'. NIV, ESV and NLT say 'resembling', and BSB says simply 'like'. Those are smoother but drop the sense that the likeness was produced by someone, whether God's design or the way Scripture was written.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Used only here in the New Testament. In the Greek Old Testament it appears in the Letter of Jeremiah (vv. 4, 62, 70), where idols are 'made to resemble' things, and in Wisdom of Solomon 13:14, where the idol-maker 'likens' wood to an animal. Both are clearly about an image made from a model.
Where it appears
Hebrews · 1
-
Hebrews 7:3 ἀφωμοιωμένος made like
Without father or mother or genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God, he remains a priest for all time.
Here: 'Having been made to resemble.' It is passive (something was done to him) and perfect (a completed act with lasting result). Melchizedek is the likeness and the Son is the original, not the other way round.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.