What does ἵλεως (híleōs) mean in the Bible?
ἵλεως (híleōs): Divine favor shown through forgiveness, particularly God's merciful willingness to pardon injustice.
Greek · G2436
ἵλεως
Propitious/gracious
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ἵλεωςG2436
Pronunciationhíleōs
What does ἵλεως (híleōs) mean in the Bible?
ἵλεως (híleōs): Divine favor shown through forgiveness, particularly God's merciful willingness to pardon injustice.
Full entry for ἵλεως (G2436) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G2436?
The BSB source-word alignment has 2 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Far be it (1), forgive (1).
Where does ἵλεως (híleōs) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 16:22. Its strongest book concentrations include Hebrews (1), Matthew (1).
Source Word Evidence
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItFar be it1×Matthew 16:22
forgive1×Hebrews 8:12
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowMatthew 16:22
Aligned rows2
Books represented2
Matthew1Hebrews1
Source forms
ἵλεως1xhileōsHebrews 8:12
Ἵλεώς1xHileōsMatthew 16:22
Parsing patterns
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular2xMatthew 16:22, Hebrews 8:12
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Divine favor shown through forgiveness, particularly God's merciful willingness to pardon injustice.
Strong'sG2436
Lexical occurrences2 versesGreek text appearances2 timesWord forms1 form2 referencesVerse guides0 guides
Source Gloss
propitious/gracious
Extended definitionSource: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Divine favor shown through forgiveness, particularly God's merciful willingness to pardon injustice.
(Att.. for ἵλαος), [in LXX for חָלִיל, 1Ki.14:45, 2Ki.20:20, al.; ἵ. εἶναι, סָלַח, 3Ki.8:30 ff. Jer.31:34, al. ;] propitious, merciful: τ. ἀδικίαες, Heb.8:12 (Je, l.with; cf.1 Ki, l.with); ἵ. σοι (sc. ἔστω ὁ θεός), Mat.16:22 (cf. 1Sam, l.with).
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
2 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Matthew 16:22Adjective Nominative Singular Masculine
Ἵλεώςilewv
propitious, forgiving
Read verseHebrews 8:12Adjective Nominative Singular Masculine
ἵλεωςilewv
propitious, forgiving
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.
Grammatical Forms
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Form patterns1Aligned forms2Case patternNominative (2)Number patternSingular (2)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · MasculineMatt 16:22 · Heb 8:122×
Word Origins
ἵλεως is built from this root: