{"id":106195,"date":"2026-08-25T19:06:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/?p=106195"},"modified":"2026-08-25T19:06:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T23:06:33","slug":"greek-word-for-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bgodinspired.com\/index.php\/articles\/greek-word-for-forgiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek Word for Forgiveness: What Does ‘Aphesis’ Really Mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>11 Minute, 21 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n

Greek Word for Forgiveness: What Does “Aphesis” Really Mean?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Quick answer:<\/strong> The primary Greek word for forgiveness in the New Testament is \u1f04\u03c6\u03b5\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 (aphesis)<\/strong>, pronounced AH-feh-sees<\/em> — Strong’s G859<\/strong>. It does not mean “to feel warmly toward someone who wronged you.” It literally means release, dismissal, letting go<\/strong> — the word a first-century Greek speaker would use for cancelling a debt, freeing a slave, or opening a prison door. Aphesis appears seventeen times in the New Testament, and your English Bible renders it as either “forgiveness” or “remission” in nearly every one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Word Study: Where “Aphesis” Comes From<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Aphesis is the noun form of the verb \u1f00\u03c6\u03af\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9 (aphiemi<\/strong>, G863)<\/strong>, which is built from two smaller pieces:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • apo<\/strong> (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc) — “away from”<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • hiemi<\/strong> (\u1f35\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9) — “to send”<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    So at root, aphesis is a sending-away<\/strong>. The image underneath the word is not a feeling at all. It is motion — something that was attached to you being detached and sent off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This is why the verb aphiemi shows up all over the Gospels doing jobs that have nothing to do with sin. When the disciples “left” their nets to follow Jesus, that is aphiemi. When the fever “left” Peter’s mother-in-law, that is aphiemi. When Jesus “yielded up” His spirit on the cross, that is aphiemi. The word simply means to let something go — to release your grip and let it depart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The commercial world of the ancient Mediterranean sharpened it further. In everyday Greek documents, aphesis was a legal and financial term: the cancellation of a debt, the release of an obligation, the discharge of a prisoner. If someone owed you money and you granted them aphesis, the ledger was not adjusted or renegotiated. The debt was gone. There was nothing left to collect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And then there is the Old Testament layer, which is the part most readers never hear. When Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint), they needed a word for the Year of Jubilee<\/strong> — the fiftieth year when every debt was wiped, every slave went home free, and every family’s lost land was restored. The word they chose was aphesis<\/em>. Leviticus 25:10 commands, “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”<\/em> That “liberty” is aphesis in Greek. Deuteronomy 15:1 sets up the seventh-year debt cancellation — “At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release”<\/em> — and that “release” is aphesis too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So by the time a New Testament writer reaches for this word, it already carries centuries of freight: debts erased, prisoners walking out, slaves going home, land returned to families who lost it.<\/strong> That is the vocabulary God chose to describe what happens to your sin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    If you have ever read the Bible and felt lost, this is for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Our free, cinematic retelling of the Book of Matthew<\/strong> lets you experience Jesus’ life, teachings, and miracles in first person — as if you were standing there — while staying scripturally accurate. It is the same Gospel where Jesus tells us to pray “forgive us our debts.” Read it the way the first hearers heard it.<\/p>\n\n\n