To feed
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G5142 is a Greek verb for feeding, nourishing, sustaining, rearing, or, in James 5, fattening oneself in self-indulgence. Jesus uses God's feeding of birds to address anxiety and identifies feeding hungry people with service to him; Revelation depicts protected nourishment in the wilderness, while James exposes luxury built beside defrauded labor.
Reader summary
Full entry for τρέφω (G5142) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5142 is a Greek verb for feeding, nourishing, sustaining, rearing, or, in James 5, fattening oneself in self-indulgence. Jesus uses God's feeding of birds to address anxiety and identifies feeding hungry people with service to him; Revelation depicts protected nourishment in the wilderness, while James exposes luxury built beside defrauded labor.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include feeds (2), brought up (1), feed [You] (1), for food (1), nursed (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 6:26. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (3), Matthew (2), Revelation (2), Acts (1).
G5142 is a Greek verb for feeding, nourishing, sustaining, rearing, or, in James 5, fattening oneself in self-indulgence. Jesus uses God's feeding of birds to address anxiety and identifies feeding hungry people with service to him; Revelation depicts protected nourishment in the wilderness, while James exposes luxury built beside defrauded labor. The verb does not promise effortless provision, reduce people to passive dependents, or make all abundance righteous.
G5142 helps teachers address providence, direct care, protected sustenance, parenting and formation, equitable food systems, and self-indulgence while rejecting prosperity formulas, paternalistic control, conditional aid, anxiety shame, worker exploitation, and the claim that trusting God excuses planning, labor, medicine, or public provision.
G5142 describes nourishment across God's creaturely provision, human feeding of hungry neighbors, protected sustenance in danger, and condemned self-fattening. The giver, recipient, means, power relationship, and surrounding justice determine its pastoral force.
Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Jesus points to the heavenly Father's feeding of birds while teaching disciples not to let anxiety rule their pursuit of necessities.
Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink?
The righteous ask when they fed the hungry King, and Jesus identifies their concrete care for the least with service to him.
And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place for her to be nourished for 1,260 days.
The woman flees to a divinely prepared wilderness place where she is nourished for a limited period amid danger.
You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.
James condemns the rich who lived in luxury and fattened their hearts while workers were defrauded and judgment approached.
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. to feed
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
8 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
Read verseI feed, rear
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 8 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
τρέφω is a primary verb - no further derivation.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G5142 shows that nourishment is both gift and responsibility. Matthew 6 directs anxious disciples to the Father's care for birds, yet the image does not abolish sowing, work, planning, or mutual aid; it confronts anxiety's rule and restores creaturely trust. Matthew 25 makes feeding hungry people a concrete encounter with Christ, not an optional metaphor. Revelation 12 pictures nourishment in a prepared refuge during danger, honoring protected space and sustained care rather than demanding immediate exposure.
James 5 reverses the image: wealthy people have fattened their own hearts while withholding workers' wages, so abundance becomes evidence against exploitative self-indulgence. Churches should provide food and support in ways that are accessible, safe, culturally fitting, and free from pressure. Caregivers should invite recipient leadership, protect privacy, pay workers fairly, and avoid using resources to purchase loyalty.
Trust in providence energizes budgeting, agriculture, health care, disaster planning, advocacy, and generous sharing. G5142 calls communities to nourish life while refusing systems that feed the powerful by exhausting everyone else.
Matt.6.26
G5142 is a Greek verb for feeding, nourishing, sustaining, bringing up, or fattening. Its active and passive settings can involve creature care, human aid, rearing, protected sustenance, or morally condemned indulgence; the verb alone does not praise the process.
Old Testament Scripture presents God as provider while commanding gleaning, fair wages, hospitality, and care for people in need. New Testament G5142 joins providence, feeding the hungry, protected nourishment, and judgment of exploitative luxury, keeping gift and human responsibility together.