to raise up, to wake
The verb ἐγείρω carries a physical core: to lift something that has fallen, to rouse something that is sleeping, to bring to a standing position what was horizontal. Picture a hand reaching down and pulling someone upright. That image is always present, even when the word travels into more abstract territory. Greek speakers used it for waking someone from sleep, for lifting a sick person from their sickbed, and for raising a building from rubble. The New Testament authors stretch all three of those images simultaneously when they apply ἐγείρω to resurrection. When Matthew records that Jesus 'was raised' on the third day, the word isn't pointing to a spiritual experience or a metaphor for hope. It's pointing to a body being lifted from a horizontal position. The tomb had held something prone. The word insists something stood up. Importantly, ἐγείρω often appears in the passive voice in resurrection contexts, 'he was raised,' which places God as the one doing the lifting. This is not a self-resurrection formula. It is a declaration of divine action. The Father reaches in and pulls the Son upright. That same verb also describes healings throughout the Gospels, where Jesus tells paralyzed and bedridden people to get up and walk. Each healing is a small preview of the larger resurrection it points toward. The word carries freight in both directions: the resurrection validates every healing, and every healing prepares you to understand the resurrection.
Most of us hear 'he was raised' and file it under theology without feeling the physical weight the word is carrying. I spent years treating resurrection as a doctrine to defend rather than an event to picture. But ἐγείρω won't let you stay abstract. It's a hand gripping a wrist. It's the specific motion of something prone becoming upright. When Paul builds his entire argument in 1 Corinthians 15 on this word, he's not offering comfort poetry. He's describing a body being lifted out of death the way you'd lift a sleeping child. Your future is in that word. Not a vague spiritual continuation, but a lifting. Someone reaches in and pulls you upright.
ἐγείρω derives from a Proto-Indo-European root related to waking and alertness, connected to the Greek noun ἐγρήγορσις (wakefulness). Its semantic family includes γρηγορέω (grēgoreō), the verb meaning 'to be watchful or alert,' which Jesus uses in Gethsemane. The connection between waking from sleep and rising from death is not accidental. The root holds them together intentionally, treating death as the deepest sleep requiring the most powerful waking.
Where egeirō appears in Scripture, and why each verse showcases it.
He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
The angel's words join ἐγείρω directly to the empty place on the ground, insisting the word refers to a physical body that is no longer prone in that location.
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
Paul's passive construction here, 'he was raised,' places the Father as the agent doing the lifting, making resurrection a Trinitarian act rather than a solo performance.
Taking her by the hand he said to her, 'Talitha cumi,' which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, arise.'
ἐγείρω appears in the command to Jairus's daughter, fusing the image of waking from sleep with the image of rising from death in a single scene that previews Easter.
but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,
Paul defines saving faith here as trust in the God who performs ἐγείρω, making the resurrection event the specific object of belief, not a supplementary fact attached to the gospel.
For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
Jesus uses ἐγείρω to claim equality with the Father's power over death, making the word the hinge on which his divine authority swings in this confrontation with the religious leaders.
Words in the same semantic family.
Every video where Adam teaches on this word, in publication order.
This word is studied in depth in the following monthly Bible studies.
