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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πάλη G3823
Pronunciation pálē
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 It struggle 1× Ephesians 6:12
Show sample aligned rows
Usage map
A compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
First aligned row Ephesians 6:12
Aligned rows 1
Books represented 1
Ephesians 1
Source forms
πάλη 1x palē Ephesians 6:12
Parsing patterns
Noun - Nominative Feminine Singular 1x Ephesians 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's G3823
Lexical occurrences 1 verse Greek text appearances 1 time Word forms 1 form 1 reference Verse guides 0 guides
Study link Ephesians 6:10-20 Source Gloss
wrestling
Extended definition Source: 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 corpus Greek 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 6:12 Noun Nominative Singular Feminine
πάλη palh
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 patterns 1 Aligned forms 1 Case pattern Nominative (1) Number pattern Singular (1)
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
Nominative · Singular · Feminine Eph 6:12 1×
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:
Sources
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