Lowly
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G5011 describes lowliness, whether a persons social position, humbled condition, or willing posture that refuses self-exaltation and receives dependence truthfully. Context distinguishes people brought low by circumstance from people who embrace humility; the adjective can name status, disposition, or both without praising oppression itself.
Reader summary
Full entry for ταπεινός (G5011) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5011 describes lowliness, whether a persons social position, humbled condition, or willing posture that refuses self-exaltation and receives dependence truthfully. Context distinguishes people brought low by circumstance from people who embrace humility; the adjective can name status, disposition, or both without praising oppression itself.
The BSB source-word alignment has 8 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include to [the] humble (2), [am] humble (1), [the] humble (1), downcast (1), humble (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 11:29. Its strongest book concentrations include 2 Corinthians (2), James (2), 1 Peter (1), Luke (1).
G5011 describes lowliness, whether a persons social position, humbled condition, or willing posture that refuses self-exaltation and receives dependence truthfully. Context distinguishes people brought low by circumstance from people who embrace humility; the adjective can name status, disposition, or both without praising oppression itself. In Matt. 11. 29, jesus describes himself as gentle and humble in heart while inviting burdened people to learn from him and find rest.
In Luke. 1. 52, mary sings that God brings rulers down from thrones and exalts people of lowly position. G5011 opens teaching on the lowly Messiah, Gods regard for people of modest status, resistance to pride, and relationships that do not chase prestige. It corrects both self-promotion disguised as spirituality and abusive demands that vulnerable people become silent, invisible, or compliant for someone elses benefit.
G5011 gathers several dimensions of lowliness: Mary sings of rulers brought down and the lowly raised, Jesus names himself gentle and humble in heart, and the letters call believers away from pride toward fellowship with people of low position. For G5011, responsible teaching keeps lexical meaning, passage context, canonical synthesis, and present application distinguishable.
The adjective does not sanctify degradation, forbid truthful leadership, or require people experiencing abuse to accept danger as a spiritual virtue.
G5011 appears across passages that develop humility, social reversal, dependence, grace, gentle discipleship, and solidarity across status. For G5011, the immediate setting decides which part of the range is active, so the witnesses must remain distinct rather than being merged into one formula.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Jesus describes himself as gentle and humble in heart while inviting burdened people to learn from him and find rest.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has exalted the humble.
Mary sings that God brings rulers down from thrones and exalts people of lowly position.
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited.
Paul rejects conceit and directs the church toward shared regard and association with people of low position.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Low in social status or humble in spirit; NT reframes as virtue rather than disgrace.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
8 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
humble, lowly
Read versehumble, lowly
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Read versehumble, lowly
Read versehumble, lowly
Read versehumble, lowly
Read versehumble, lowly
Read versehumble, lowly
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 8 lexical occurrence verses.
ταπεινός is of uncertain origin - no further derivation.
Refers to social and economic lowliness, highlighting reversal through spiritual exaltation.James 1:9–11
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G5011 gathers several dimensions of lowliness: Mary sings of rulers brought down and the lowly raised, Jesus names himself gentle and humble in heart, and the letters call believers away from pride toward fellowship with people of low position. G5011 describes lowliness, whether a persons social position, humbled condition, or willing posture that refuses self-exaltation and receives dependence truthfully.
The selected witnesses keep the teaching concrete: Matt. 11. 29 shows that jesus describes himself as gentle and humble in heart while inviting burdened people to learn from him and find rest. , while Luke. 1. 52 shows that mary sings that God brings rulers down from thrones and exalts people of lowly position.. Rom. 12. 16 adds that paul rejects conceit and directs the church toward shared regard and association with people of low position..
G5011 opens teaching on the lowly Messiah, Gods regard for people of modest status, resistance to pride, and relationships that do not chase prestige. It corrects both self-promotion disguised as spirituality and abusive demands that vulnerable people become silent, invisible, or compliant for someone elses benefit. A church teaching G5011 faithfully will name both the promise and the boundary carried by these contexts, attend to vulnerable hearers, and refuse to make the lexical item prove more than its passages support.
The adjective does not sanctify degradation, forbid truthful leadership, or require people experiencing abuse to accept danger as a spiritual virtue.
Matt.11.29
G5011 is a Greek adjective for what is low in height, condition, rank, or disposition; moral humility must be inferred from the sentence rather than imposed on every socially low circumstance.
The Old Testament repeatedly shows God opposing the proud and lifting the poor or bowed down. In the New Testament, G5011 is illuminated by the humble Messiah and by communities called to receive grace and honor lowly neighbors.