Imprecation, execration
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The Greek noun katara means a curse — a pronounced condemnation that calls down judgment on its object. Unlike modern usage of 'curse' (profanity or a piece of bad luck), biblical katara is an authoritative speech-act: it is a declaration by God or a legitimate human authority that pronounces a specific judgment on a person, action, or condition.
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Full entry for κατάρα (G2671) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun katara means a curse — a pronounced condemnation that calls down judgment on its object. Unlike modern usage of 'curse' (profanity or a piece of bad luck), biblical katara is an authoritative speech-act: it is a declaration by God or a legitimate human authority that pronounces a specific judgment on a person, action, or condition.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a curse (2), [its] curse (1), [They are] accursed (1), curse (1), cursing (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Galatians 3:10. Its strongest book concentrations include Galatians (3), 2 Peter (1), Hebrews (1), James (1).
The Greek noun katara means a curse — a pronounced condemnation that calls down judgment on its object. Unlike modern usage of 'curse' (profanity or a piece of bad luck), biblical katara is an authoritative speech-act: it is a declaration by God or a legitimate human authority that pronounces a specific judgment on a person, action, or condition. The word's gravity is felt most sharply in Galatians 3, where Paul sets out the logic of the law's curse and Christ's substitutionary redemption from it.
The curse of the law is not arbitrary — it arises from the logic of covenant: Deuteronomy's covenant structure promises blessing for obedience and curse for disobedience (Deut. 27-28). Paul's wider argument treats humanity as standing under sin and needing redemption; Galatians 3 frames the law's curse as the covenantal verdict on lawbreakers. Paul's argument is not that the law is bad but that it is an instrument that reveals and pronounces judgment on the condition of sinners — and that Christ has entered that judgment on behalf of those under it, becoming a curse in their place (Gal.
3:13). The opposite of katara in the biblical vocabulary is eulogia (blessing), and the two function as the twin poles of the covenant: those in Christ move from curse to blessing, and the Abrahamic blessing that reaches all nations (Gal. 3:14) is only accessible because Christ absorbed the curse that stood in the way.
The local NT index currently counts about six occurrences of katara. Galatians 3 supplies the densest theological treatment of the word, with Hebrews 6:8 and James 3:10 showing additional warning and speech contexts.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
A central theological moment for katara in the NT. The verse names both the problem (the curse of the law) and the solution (Christ becoming a curse). The Deuteronomy citation (Deut. 21:23 — 'cursed is everyone hung on a tree') identifies crucifixion as the precise mode by which the exchange occurs. Christ does not merely remove the curse at a distance; he enters it and bears it in his own person. This is a concentrated statement of substitutionary curse-bearing.
All who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”
Paul establishes the problem before announcing the solution: those who pursue the inheritance through law-observance are not on a valid path — they are under the very curse the law pronounces. Paul uses the Deuteronomy 27:26 citation to show that law-reliance cannot secure the inheritance because the law pronounces a curse on lawbreakers. In Galatians 3, Christ's redemption is the rescue Paul announces from that curse.
‘Cursed is he who does not put the words of this law into practice.’ And let all the people say, ‘Amen!’
The covenantal ground of the curse: Deuteronomy's covenant ceremony at Mount Ebal pronounces a series of curses for violations of specific laws, culminating in this comprehensive curse for anyone who does not do everything in the law. Paul cites this verse in Gal. 3:10 as the basis for his claim that the law itself pronounces a katara on lawbreakers — which means the law, properly understood, exposes rather than resolves the human problem.
You must not leave the body on the tree overnight, but you must be sure to bury him that day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.
The specific Deuteronomy law that Paul reads as prophetically identifying the form of Christ's curse-bearing. A man executed by hanging on a tree was specifically designated as being under God's curse and had to be buried the same day to avoid defiling the land. Paul's reading in Galatians 3:13 is that Jesus' crucifixion on a tree (cross) was not a coincidence — it was the precise mode by which he entered the covenantal curse in order to absorb it.
And to Adam He said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; through toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
The first katara in the biblical narrative: the ground is cursed because of human rebellion, and labor becomes toilsome. This is the entrance of the curse into human experience and the created order. Paul's argument in Galatians 3 stands against this larger background: the curse of the law is not separate from this original curse but is the covenant specification of the same condition — and Christ redeems from both.
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. A curse as divine imprecation or human execration; opposite to blessing in relational contexts.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a curse, cursing
Read versea curse, cursing
Read versea curse, cursing
Read versea curse, cursing
Read versea curse, cursing
Read versea curse, cursing
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 1 selected witness from 6 lexical occurrence verses.
κατάρα is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Katara is the word that names what humanity is under apart from Christ, and what Christ entered in order to bring us out. The preacher who handles this word well will resist two errors. The first is minimizing the curse: treating human sinfulness as a minor moral deficiency that God overlooks because he is gracious. The biblical picture is starker — those who stand before God on the ground of their own law-keeping stand under a declared judgment that they cannot reverse.
The second error is leaving people there: dwelling on the curse without announcing with equal force the redemption of Galatians 3:13. The pastoral movement of the text is from curse to blessing — Galatians 3:14 makes this explicit: 'that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus.' The curse and the blessing define the two possible positions, and the cross is the place where the transfer happens.
The preacher who preaches Galatians 3:10-14 well will help people feel the weight of the first in order to feel the relief of the second. There is no adequate category for the grace of Galatians 3:13 without the gravity of Galatians 3:10. And beyond forgiveness, the redemption from katara has a positive destination: the receiving of the Spirit through faith (Gal.
3:14) — Which is the beginning of the new life the curse had made impossible.
Gal.3.13
Katara is built from kata (down, against) + ara (a prayer, an imprecation). The compound suggests a word or prayer directed downward against someone — an imprecation that calls judgment upon its object. The related verb kataraomai (to curse) appears in Jesus' cursing of the fig tree (Matt. 21:19; Mark 11:14) and in the Beatitudes' counterpart ('woe to you who are rich,' Luke 6:24-25).
The antonym eulogia (blessing) shares the same structure: eu (well) + logos/legō (word/speak) — to speak well of, to bless. Katara and eulogia together define the two ends of the covenant's verdict.
The katara thread runs from Genesis to Revelation. Genesis 3 introduces it: the ground is cursed, labor is painful, death is the outcome of human rebellion. Deuteronomy 27-28 gives the curse its covenant specification: the nation that does not obey God's law in its totality will experience the weight of covenantal judgment — exile, defeat, disease, death. The prophets depict Israel living under this curse in exile and longing for the reversal.
The NT's announcement is that the reversal has come — not by Israel finally obeying, but by the Messiah entering the cursed condition and absorbing it. Galatians 3:13 is the hinge-point: Christ redeemed from the curse by becoming a curse. The cross is where the judgment falls — on him instead of us. And the result is not merely neutrality but the positive gift of the Spirit (Gal.
3:14) And the Abrahamic blessing flowing to all nations. Revelation 22:3 names the consummation: 'no longer will there be any curse' in the new creation. The katara that entered with Adam's sin and was absorbed by Christ's death will be finally and permanently absent in the redeemed creation.
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