What does πάλη (pálē) mean in the Bible?
πάλη (pálē): Spiritual combat metaphor: wrestling as close-quarters physical struggle transferred to describe Christian's battle against evil forces.
Greek · G3823
πάλη
Wrestling
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πάληG3823
Pronunciationpálē
What does πάλη (pálē) mean in the Bible?
πάλη (pálē): Spiritual combat metaphor: wrestling as close-quarters physical struggle transferred to describe Christian's battle against evil forces.
Full entry for πάλη (G3823) · Open the biblical lexicon
Questions this entry answers
How does the BSB render G3823?
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include struggle (1).
Where does πάλη (pálē) appear in Scripture?
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Ephesians 6:12. Its strongest book concentrations include Ephesians (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 Itstruggle1×Ephesians 6:12
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned rowEphesians 6:12
Aligned rows1
Books represented1
Ephesians1
Source forms
πάλη1xpalēEphesians 6:12
Parsing patterns
Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular1xEphesians 6:12
Evidence Summary
Greek word. Spiritual combat metaphor: wrestling as close-quarters physical struggle transferred to describe Christian's battle against evil forces.
Strong'sG3823
Lexical occurrences1 verseGreek text appearances1 timeWord forms1 form1 referenceVerse guides0 guides
Study linkEphesians 6:10-20Source Gloss
wrestling
Extended definitionSource: STEPBible TBESG + Abbott-Smith
Spiritual combat metaphor: wrestling as close-quarters physical struggle transferred to describe Christian's battle against evil forces.
(πάλλω, to sway) wrestling, hence, generally, fight, contest: figuratively, of the spiritual combat of Christians, Eph.6:12.
Greek Text Appearances
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
Ephesians 6:12Noun Nominative Singular Feminine
πάληpalh
a wrestling, struggle
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 forms1Case patternNominative (1)Number patternSingular (1)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · FeminineEph 6:121×
Where It Appears in Scripture
Where this word appears in Scripture: passage, original form, and sense in context.
Biblical Witnesses
Spiritual combat and struggle against evil forces, figurative use
Word Origins
πάλη is built from this root: