Promise
Reading a lexicon entry
What this page is: Each lexicon entry shows the original Hebrew or Greek word behind the English translation: its meaning, its range of use, and where it appears in Scripture.
Strong's number: The Strong's code (H- or G-) is the standard reference number for this word. It connects this entry to chapter and passage language tabs.
Where it appears: The witness passages show where this word is used in context. Click any to open the study page for that passage.
This lexicon entry is part of our ongoing editorial review. If you notice missing content, unclear wording, or a possible correction, please send us a note through the Connect page. Screenshots are helpful.
The Greek noun epangelia carries the full weight of the word 'promise' in its most binding, most personal form: it is a declaration made on one's own authority that commits the speaker to a future act. In the New Testament it is almost exclusively used of God's promises, particularly the promise made to Abraham and his seed, which Paul treats in Galatians and Romans as the foundational covenant from which the gospel.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἐπαγγελία (G1860) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun epangelia carries the full weight of the word 'promise' in its most binding, most personal form: it is a declaration made on one's own authority that commits the speaker to a future act. In the New Testament it is almost exclusively used of God's promises, particularly the promise made to Abraham and his seed, which Paul treats in Galatians.
The BSB source-word alignment has 52 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include promise (19), promises (7), promised (6), [the] promise (3), a promise (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 24:49. Its strongest book concentrations include Hebrews (14), Galatians (10), Acts (8), Romans (8).
This entry includes 1 verse guide that explain exact original-language forms in context.
The Greek noun epangelia carries the full weight of the word 'promise' in its most binding, most personal form: it is a declaration made on one's own authority that commits the speaker to a future act. In the New Testament it is almost exclusively used of God's promises, particularly the promise made to Abraham and his seed, which Paul treats in Galatians and Romans as the foundational covenant from which the gospel flows.
What distinguishes biblical epangelia from ordinary human promises is the character of the one who speaks: God's promise is as certain as God himself. Paul's sustained argument in Galatians 3 is that the Mosaic law, which came 430 years after the Abrahamic promise, could not annul or supersede that promise, because the promise rests on God's sovereign word, not on human performance.
The inheritance was given by epangelia (Gal. 3:18), which means it is a gift, not a wage. This distinction is the hinge on which the entire Galatian letter turns: if the inheritance is by promise, it cannot also be by law-observance. The promise moves through the seed (singular, Christ; Gal. 3:16), and all who are in Christ become heirs according to the promise (Gal.
3:29). Second Corinthians 1:20 captures the NT's view of the whole promise-canon: all of God's promises find their 'Yes' in Christ, and through Christ they become 'Amen'; confirmed and sealed to the glory of God.
The local Greek index currently counts about 52 occurrences for exact Strong's ID G1860, with its heaviest concentration in the Pauline letters (especially Galatians and Romans) and Hebrews. It is Paul's preferred term for the covenant commitment God made to Abraham, which he reads as the charter of the gospel and the ground of justification by faith. Hebrews develops the promissory strand by showing that the patriarchs died without receiving the promises in full, anchoring Christian hope in what God has pledged but not yet fully delivered.
For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God freely granted it to Abraham through a promise.
This is the structural key to Galatians 3's argument. Paul sets law and promise in antithesis not as two competing paths to the same inheritance, but as two incompatible logics: if inheritance is earned by law-observance, it is no longer a gift; if it is a promise (epangelia), it is pure gift from God. The word 'granted' (kecharistai; 'graced') reinforces that the promise is an act of grace, not a contract based on merit.
But the Scripture pronounces all things confined by sin, so that by faith in Jesus Christ the promise might be given to those who believe.
The promise is received through faith in Jesus Christ, not through law-compliance. Paul's logic is that the law's role was to demonstrate universal imprisonment under sin, not to provide the escape route. The escape route is epangelia received through pistis. The promise thus sets the horizon: it is what the whole Scriptural narrative has been building toward, and faith is how individuals enter into what God has promised.
And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
The logical conclusion of the chapter: union with Christ is how Gentile believers enter the Abrahamic promise-stream. They do not receive a separate promise; they receive the same promise that was made to Abraham, because they are in the one Seed who is Christ. The phrase 'according to promise' (kat' epangelian) closes the chapter by anchoring identity and inheritance in God's sovereign word, not in ethnicity or law-status.
This promise belongs to you and your children and to all who are far off—to all whom the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
Peter's Pentecost sermon extends epangelia to every generation and every nation; 'all who are far off.' This is the promise's own logic breaking out of its narrower OT context into the eschatological fullness that Paul also argues for in Galatians 3. The promise was always for all nations (Gen. 12:3; 22:18), and Acts 2:39 announces that its hour of universal application has arrived.
All these people died in faith, without having received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar. And they acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Hebrews frames the whole patriarchal narrative as a life lived toward epangelia; promise not yet received, but trusted from a distance. This is the posture that defines the people of God across both testaments: they live in the space between the promise given and the promise delivered, and faith is what sustains them there. The NT church occupies the same space, having received the firstfruits (the Spirit) but awaiting the fullness.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Divine commitment to future blessing, not mere human word but binding covenantal assurance
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 52 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
Read versea promise
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 8 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 7 selected witnesses from 52 lexical occurrence verses.
ἐπαγγελία is built from this root:
The inheritance depends on God’s promise rather than human performance. 1 John 2:24-27
Defines true covenant identity as grounded in God’s promise. 2 Timothy 1:1-7
Anchors Paul’s hope in God’s covenant faithfulness. Acts 26:1-8
The unfolding events occur as the time of God’s covenant promise draws near. Acts 7:17-34
Paul frames his apostleship around God’s pledged gospel reality. Timothy’s courage is rooted in what God has promised, not in shifting circumstances. Romans 4:13-25
Centers hope in the guaranteed gift of eternal life through the Son. Romans 9:1-13
Eternal life is not earned but received as God’s faithful promise in Christ.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Epangelia teaches the preacher that the gospel is not a new arrangement God invented in the New Testament but the fulfillment of something he committed himself to at the beginning. The Abrahamic promise is the spine of the whole biblical story: God makes an unconditional commitment to bless all nations through Abraham's seed, and the entire narrative from Genesis 12 onward is the story of how that promise moves, is threatened, is delayed, and is ultimately delivered in Christ.
Paul's argument in Galatians is not merely that the Galatians have made a practical mistake about circumcision; it is that by turning to law as the path to inheritance they have abandoned the promise-logic that underlies the gospel itself. A gospel built on law-performance is not a variant of the real gospel; it is a different kind of thing entirely, because it replaces the word of the God who promises with the effort of the person who performs.
The preacher who grasps epangelia will preach assurance differently: the ground of the believer's standing before God is not their consistency, their obedience, or their spiritual progress; it is the word of the God who cannot lie (Tit. 1:2), who committed himself to Abraham and all who are in Abraham's seed. Promise-based preaching produces a qualitatively different kind of comfort than law-based preaching.
Gal.3.18
Epangelia is built from epi (upon/toward) + angellō (to announce, declare). The compound suggests a declaration directed toward someone, a commitment made in the direction of another person. The related verb epangellomai means to announce, commit, or promise, and it is used of both God's and human promises in the NT. The noun form epangelia in the LXX translates various Hebrew terms but becomes the NT's preferred word for the divine commitment to Abraham.
Paul uses it without the definite article in some passages (Gal. 3:18, 'by promise'), which emphasizes the character of the action (gift-promise) rather than a specific promise-event.
Epangelia is the NT's translation of the Abrahamic covenant's inner logic. In Genesis, God makes an unconditional declaration to Abraham: I will give you land, I will multiply your offspring, I will bless all nations through you (Gen. 12:1-3; 15; 17; 22:15-18). These promises are repeated to Isaac (Gen. 26:3-4) and Jacob (Gen. 28:13-14) without being negotiated; they are sovereign commitments, not contracts.
Paul reads this promise-structure in Galatians 3 as the antecedent of the gospel: the law that came later (at Sinai) could not annul a promise made 430 years earlier, because a confirmed covenant cannot be unilaterally rewritten. The promise was always christological; 'to your offspring, who is Christ' (Gal. 3:16), and always universal in scope; 'all nations will be blessed.'
Acts 2:39 announces that the promise's universal moment has arrived at Pentecost. Hebrews develops the not-yet dimension: the patriarchs died embracing the promises from afar, and the church likewise lives in the tension between the promise given (the Spirit as firstfruits) and the promise fully received (the resurrection and the new creation). The whole NT is the story of epangelia arriving and still coming.
MorphGNT Strong's Dictionary XML — CC0 1.0 Public Domain
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (morphhb/OSHB) — CC BY 4.0
Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon — CC BY 4.0
Berean Standard Bible (BSB) source-word alignment - CC0 Public Domain