To put away (literally or figuratively)
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G659 is a Greek verb for putting off, laying aside, removing, setting down, or putting away. Ephesians 4:25 commands believers to put off falsehood and speak truthfully because they belong to one another, making moral change communal rather than merely private.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀποτίθημι (G659) · Open the biblical lexicon
G659 is a Greek verb for putting off, laying aside, removing, setting down, or putting away. Ephesians 4:25 commands believers to put off falsehood and speak truthfully because they belong to one another, making moral change communal rather than merely private.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include get rid (1), laid (1), let us lay aside (1), let us throw off (1), must put aside (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 14:3. Its strongest book concentrations include Ephesians (2), 1 Peter (1), Acts (1), Colossians (1).
G659 is a Greek verb for putting off, laying aside, removing, setting down, or putting away. Ephesians 4:25 commands believers to put off falsehood and speak truthfully because they belong to one another, making moral change communal rather than merely private. Colossians 3:8 directs the church to put aside anger, rage, malice, slander, and abusive speech as part of life renewed in Christ.
Acts 7:58 uses the literal sense when witnesses lay their garments at Saul's feet while Stephen is stoned, showing that setting something aside is not morally good by itself and may facilitate violence. Other texts concern laying aside darkness, encumbrance, moral filth, deceitful former ways, and imprisonment. G659 opens repentance, truthful speech, habit change, endurance, and complicity.
It corrects self-improvement language that demands people discard personality, culture, grief, or protective boundaries instead of naming specific harmful practices.
G659 describes putting something away from oneself, literally or figuratively. Ethical uses identify particular behaviors or patterns to remove, while narrative uses may describe garments set aside or a person put in prison. The object controls the moral meaning.
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one another.
Members of one body are commanded to put off falsehood and practice truthful neighbor-to-neighbor speech.
But now you must put aside all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.
The renewed community is to put aside anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy speech.
They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
Witnesses set their garments at Saul's feet while participating in Stephen's killing, a literal action embedded in collective violence.
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. Moral self-stripping: to deliberately shed vices and sinful patterns like removing unwanted clothing
Moral self-stripping: to deliberately shed vices and sinful patterns like removing unwanted clothing
to put off or aside; in NT always mid.,
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 lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
Read verseI lay off or aside, renounce
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)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 2 selected witnesses from 8 lexical occurrence verses.
ἀποτίθημι is built from these roots:
G659 makes change specific. Paul does not tell believers to discard their humanity; he names falsehood, rage, malice, slander, corrupt desire, and deeds of darkness. The surrounding passages also name what replaces them: truth, useful work, generosity, gracious speech, compassion, forgiveness, love, and endurance. This put-off and put-on pattern resists both shame and vagueness.
People formed by trauma may have survival responses that require patient, skilled care rather than denunciation. Anger can signal harm, while rage and abusive action still need boundaries and transformation. Acts 7 adds a warning about participation: laying down garments is ordinary, but in that scene it supports a killing and places Saul within the violence.
Communities should examine the small logistical acts that enable injustice, such as carrying messages, deleting records, isolating a complainant, or providing a platform. Repentance includes stopping such assistance, telling truth, repairing harm where possible, and accepting appropriate consequences.
Eph.4.25
G659 combines placing with separation and means put off, lay aside, put away, or store. The New Testament often uses a middle form for removing something from oneself, especially garments and ethical behaviors, but one occurrence concerns placing someone in prison.
The prophets call God's people to put away evil deeds and learn justice, while wisdom repeatedly contrasts harmful speech with truth. The apostles frame new life through concrete practices removed and virtues embodied in community.