What Does Ephesians 6:4 Mean?
And you fathers, do not stir your children to anger, but nourish them in the training and the admonition of the Lord.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.THE KEY
“Bring them up” is the verb for nourishing: the verse frames a child’s formation as sustained care, bounded by a warning against provoking anger.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the way a child is formed now: through the Lord’s training and counsel, held within care that nourishes. The command places a clear limit on conduct that stirs a child to anger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that anger is an acceptable instrument for forming a child; the verse sets that provocation against the nurturing it names.
THE ROOT
ἐκτρέφετε
ektrephete
GROWS FROM
τρέφω
trephō
To nourish, feed, or rear.
“nourish them” in this verse is ektrephete. The verb translated “bring them up” carries the sense of nourishing. The image is ongoing care that sustains growth, not merely getting a child to adulthood.
ALSO GROWS
trephō: Nourish, feed, or cherish.
τρέφω
The same verb appears in Ephesians 5:29 for nourishing one’s own body, bringing the language of care into this command.
trophē: Food or nourishment.
τροφή
This related word makes the link between raising and sustaining life visible: formation includes what nourishes over time.
παιδείᾳ
paideia
GROWS FROM
παιδεύω
paideuō
To train, instruct, or discipline.
The word translated “nurture” names training and formation. Beside the verb for nourishing, it shows that care includes guidance, while the verse places that guidance within the Lord’s way.
ALSO GROWS
paideuō: Train, instruct, or discipline.
παιδεύω
This verb shows the active formation contained in nurture: guidance that shapes over time.
paideutēs: A trainer or instructor.
παιδευτής
The related noun points to formation as a guided relationship, rather than a moment of anger.
παροργίζετε
parorgizete
GROWS FROM
ὀργίζω
orgizō
To become angry or make someone angry; παροργίζω means to provoke to anger.
The command names anger as an effect that a father’s conduct can stir up. Set beside nourishment and training, it exposes a boundary within the parent’s role: formation is not license to provoke.
ALSO GROWS
orgē: Anger.
ὀργή
This related noun names the anger at the center of the warning.
parorgismos: Provocation or anger stirred up.
παροργισμός
This related word appears in Ephesians 4:26, linking the passage’s language of provocation to the experience of anger.
THE PATTERN
Children are formed through sustained instruction and care, while authority is restrained from provoking anger and discouragement.
And you shall sharpen them to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he grows old, he does not turn aside from it.Fathers, do not stir up your children, so that they do not go cold.THE THREAD
For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but raises it and warms it, as the Lord does the assembly.“Nourisheth” is the same Greek verb used for “bring them up” in Ephesians 6:4. The shared word lets the care described for the body illuminate the care named for a child.
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