Be healthy
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Hygiaino means to be healthy, sound, or whole. Luke uses it for bodily health and for the safe return of the younger son, while the Pastoral Epistles apply the health image to teaching, words, faith, love, and perseverance.
Reader summary
Full entry for ὑγιαίνω (G5198) · Open the biblical lexicon
Hygiaino means to be healthy, sound, or whole. Luke uses it for bodily health and for the safe return of the younger son, while the Pastoral Epistles apply the health image to teaching, words, faith, love, and perseverance.
The BSB source-word alignment has 12 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include sound (4), [and] sound (1), [with the] sound (1), enjoy good health (1), healthy (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 5:31. Its strongest book concentrations include Titus (4), Luke (3), 1 Timothy (2), 2 Timothy (2).
Hygiaino means to be healthy, sound, or whole. Luke uses it for bodily health and for the safe return of the younger son, while the Pastoral Epistles apply the health image to teaching, words, faith, love, and perseverance. The figurative uses do not make doctrine a medical technique. They show that apostolic truth is free from the corruption of error and fitted to nourish faithful life.
First Timothy contrasts sound teaching with conduct opposed to God’s moral order. Second Timothy joins sound words to faith and love in Christ, and Titus connects sound teaching with an elder’s fidelity and a congregation’s mature character. Faithful reading therefore keeps the verb attached to what is described as sound. It should not turn “sound doctrine” into a slogan for severity, tradition, or party loyalty.
The standard is the faithful word centered on Christ and expressed in godliness, love, and endurance.
Hygiaino moves from ordinary bodily health to a pastoral image for teaching, faith, and character that remain whole under the apostolic gospel.
Jesus answered, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
Jesus uses the ordinary physical sense in a comparison that explains His mission toward sinners. The saying supplies the health image without equating bodily illness with personal guilt.
For the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching
Paul contrasts sound teaching with conduct opposed to the moral purpose of God’s law. Doctrine and life are held together in the paragraph.
If anyone teaches another doctrine and disagrees with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with godly teaching,
The sound words are identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and teaching that accords with godliness. Christ’s words and their fruit govern the standard.
Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching you have heard from me, with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Timothy must preserve the apostolic pattern in faith and love in Christ. Soundness is not separated from either truth or Christian character.
He must hold firmly to the faithful word as it was taught, so that he can encourage others by sound teaching and refute those who contradict it.
An overseer’s ability to encourage and refute rests on holding the faithful word. The verse defines sound teaching through fidelity to what was taught.
Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance.
The health image reaches faith, love, and perseverance in mature discipleship. Soundness is visible in sustained Christian character.
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 be sound or healthy; in Pastoral Epistles, metaphorically means doctrinally sound or orthodox in faith.
To be sound or healthy; in Pastoral Epistles, metaphorically means doctrinally sound or orthodox in faith.
(ὑγιής), [in LXX chiefly for שָׁלוֹם, and frequently in To ;] to be sound, healthy, in good health: Luk.5:31 7:10 15:27, 3Jo.2. In Past. Epp. (as also in cl.) metaphorically, ὑ. ἐν τ. πίστει, Tit.1:13 ; τ. πίστει, τ. ἀγάπῃ, τ. ὑπομονῇ, Tit.2:2; ἡ ὑγιαίνουσα διδασκαλία, 1Ti.1:10, 2Ti.4:3, Tit.1:9 2:1 ; λόγοι ὑγιαίνοντες, 1Ti.6:3, 2Ti.1:13.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
12 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I am well
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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 11 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)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 12 lexical occurrence verses.
ὑγιαίνω is built from this root:
The gospel message is described as doctrinally healthy, contrasting with false teachings that corrupt the faith.1 Timothy 6:3-10
Healthy doctrine preserves the spiritual well-being of the church.2 Timothy 1:13-14
True doctrine produces spiritual health in contrast to corrupt speculation.2 Timothy 4:1-5
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Hygiaino gives teachers a biblical health image whose standard is textual and Christ-centered. Luke preserves the ordinary sense, which keeps the metaphor intelligible. First Timothy shows that teaching can be opposed not only by a rival statement but by conduct that resists God’s moral order. The same letter locates sound words in the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ and joins them to godliness.
Second Timothy commands preservation of the apostolic pattern with faith and love in Christ, preventing fidelity from becoming cold aggression. Titus requires overseers to hold the faithful word so that encouragement and refutation arise from the same source, then applies soundness to faith, love, and perseverance in older believers. A congregation is not healthy merely because it uses firm language or repeats inherited labels.
Scripture’s pattern joins truth received, Christ confessed, error answered, character formed, love practiced, and endurance sustained.
Titus.1.9
Hygiaino is a verb for being healthy or sound. In the Pastorals its present participial forms frequently modify teaching, words, or believers, extending an ordinary health image into a context-governed moral and theological metaphor. The local BSB word table contains twelve New Testament verse witnesses.
Scripture often describes God’s instruction as life-giving and His people as needing healing, restoration, and faithful shepherding. The Pastoral Epistles develop that broad canonical pattern by naming apostolic teaching, faith, love, and perseverance as sound under the word centered on Christ.