Proverbs 25:28 · Symbol · Self-control
The Words Enkrateia and the City Without Walls
Three families of Greek words and one Hebrew noun stand behind the English words self-control, sensible, sober and temperate in Proverbs and the New Testament.
The first time the New Testament uses its verb for a sound mind, it describes the man Jesus had freed from a legion of demons.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who does not control his temper.
- The word
- ἐγκράτεια (enkrateia), G1466
- First appears
- Acts 24:25 “As Paul expounded on righteousness, self-control, and the…”
Summary
The enkrat- words speak of strength held over oneself, the sophron words of a sound mind, and nepho of a sober and watchful head. Proverbs gives the picture behind them all, for a man with no restraint over his spirit is a city with its wall broken down and nothing to keep an enemy out. The Greek translation of that proverb reads it of a man who acts without counsel, and teachers of the church have read the wall in more than one way.
- Enkrateia (G1466), the self-control that ends the fruit of the Spirit, stands four times in the New Testament, and its family seven times in six verses.
- The sophron family, the words of a sound mind, stands sixteen times, more than twice as often as the enkrat- family.
- The Hebrew noun ma'tsar, restraint, stands in one verse of the Bible, the proverb that likens the man without it to a city whose walls are broken down.
- Nepho, to be sober, first means to abstain from wine, and the apostles use it six times for a clear and watchful mind.
Self-control in Hebrew and Greek
Self-control is the value of ruling one's own desires, appetites and temper under God, and the Bible names it with a small set of original words. One rendering in a translation can stand for different originals in different verses, and one original can take several renderings, so a reader of a translation alone cannot see which word a verse uses.
This word study asks which words Scripture uses for the value, how often each stands and what each means. It also asks what the proverb of the city whose walls are broken down says of a man without restraint. It maps every New Testament use with its Berean words and sets the Hebrew of the proverb beside its Greek translation. It then gives the readings of the church, follows the words through the Septuagint and Philo, and takes the Greek families one by one.
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.The verse is the one place in Paul's letters where the noun enkrateia stands, at the end of the nine fruit.
Instead, he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.Self-controlled here renders sophron and disciplined renders enkrates, so two families stand in one list of an elder's qualities.
Every Use of the Words
The words stand in the Gospels, Acts, Paul's letters and Peter's letters, and in no other book of the New Testament.
Sophroneo and nepho stand six times each, more often than any other of the fourteen words.
| Word | Sense in the lexicon | Uses |
|---|---|---|
| The enkrat- family, mastery of oneself | ||
| enkrateia, ἐγκράτεια, G1466 | self-control, especially continence | 4 |
| enkrateuomai, ἐγκρατεύομαι, G1467 | to exercise self-restraint in diet and chastity | 2 |
| enkrates, ἐγκρατής, G1468 | strong in a thing, masterful, self-controlled | 1 |
| The want of it | ||
| akrasia, ἀκρασία, G192 | want of self-restraint | 2 |
| akrates, ἀκρατής, G193 | powerless, without self-control | 1 |
| The sophron family | ||
| sophroneo, σωφρονέω, G4993 | to be of sound mind | 6 |
| sophron, σώφρων, G4998 | sound in mind, self-controlled | 4 |
| sophrosyne, σωφροσύνη, G4997 | soundness of mind, self-control | 3 |
| sophronizo, σωφρονίζω, G4994 | to make of sound mind, to discipline | 1 |
| sophronismos, σωφρονισμός, G4995 | discipline, self-control | 1 |
| sophronos, σωφρόνως, G4996 | with sound mind, moderately | 1 |
| Nepho and nephalios, sober | ||
| nepho, νήφω, G3525 | to abstain from wine, to be sober | 6 |
| nephalios, G3524 | sober, circumspect | 3 |
| The Hebrew noun | ||
| ma'tsar, מַעְצָר, H4623 | control, restraint | 1 |
akrates, ἀκρατής, G193, The sophron family, sophroneo, σωφρονέω, G4993, sophron, σώφρων, G4998, sophrosyne, σωφροσύνη, G4997, sophronizo, σωφρονίζω, G4994, sophronismos, σωφρονισμός, G4995, sophronos, σωφρόνως, G4996 and 5 more
Every use, verse by verse35 rows in five groups
The counts are those of the site's tagged Greek and Hebrew text, and a printed concordance may differ by a few.
The letters to Timothy and Titus hold 16 of the 35 New Testament uses of the four Greek groups.
| Verse | Word | The Berean words |
|---|---|---|
| Enkrateia and its family, mastery of oneself: 7 uses in 6 verses | ||
| Acts 24:25 | enkrateia, G1466 | As Paul expounded on righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment |
| 1 Corinthians 7:9 | enkrateuomai, G1467 | But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. |
| 1 Corinthians 9:25 | enkrateuomai, G1467 | Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. |
| Galatians 5:23 | enkrateia, G1466 | gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. |
| Titus 1:8 | enkrates, G1468 | upright, holy, and disciplined. |
| 2 Peter 1:6 | enkrateia, G1466, twice | and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance |
| Akrasia and akrates, the want of self-control: 3 uses | ||
| Matthew 23:25 | akrasia, G192 | inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. |
| 1 Corinthians 7:5 | akrasia, G192 | so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control. |
| 2 Timothy 3:3 | akrates, G193 | unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control |
| Sophron and its family, a sound mind: 16 uses | ||
| Mark 5:15 | sophroneo, G4993 | sitting there, clothed and in his right mind |
| Luke 8:35 | sophroneo, G4993 | sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind |
| Acts 26:25 | sophrosyne, G4997 | I am speaking words of truth and sobriety. |
| Romans 12:3 | sophroneo, G4993 | think of yourself with sober judgment |
| 2 Corinthians 5:13 | sophroneo, G4993 | if we are of sound mind, it is for you. |
| 1 Timothy 2:9 | sophrosyne, G4997 | with modesty, and with self-control |
| 1 Timothy 2:15 | sophrosyne, G4997 | faith, love, and holiness, with self-control. |
| 1 Timothy 3:2 | sophron, G4998 | temperate, self-controlled, respectable |
| 2 Timothy 1:7 | sophronismos, G4995 | but of power, love, and self-control. |
| Titus 1:8 | sophron, G4998 | a lover of good, self-controlled, upright |
| Titus 2:2 | sophron, G4998 | temperate, dignified, self-controlled |
| Titus 2:4 | sophronizo, G4994 | they can train the young women |
| Titus 2:5 | sophron, G4998 | to be self-controlled, pure |
| Titus 2:6 | sophroneo, G4993 | urge the younger men to be self-controlled. |
| Titus 2:12 | sophronos, G4996 | to live sensible, upright, and godly lives |
| 1 Peter 4:7 | sophroneo, G4993 | Therefore be clear-minded |
| Nepho and nephalios, sober: 9 uses | ||
| 1 Thessalonians 5:6 | nepho, G3525 | let us remain awake and sober. |
| 1 Thessalonians 5:8 | nepho, G3525 | since we belong to the day, let us be sober |
| 1 Timothy 3:2 | nephalios, G3524 | the husband of but one wife, temperate |
| 1 Timothy 3:11 | nephalios, G3524 | not slanderers, but temperate and faithful in all things. |
| 2 Timothy 4:5 | nepho, G3525 | But you, be sober in all things |
| Titus 2:2 | nephalios, G3524 | Older men are to be temperate |
| 1 Peter 1:13 | nepho, G3525 | Be sober-minded. Set your hope fully on the grace |
| 1 Peter 4:7 | nepho, G3525 | be clear-minded and sober, so that you can pray. |
| 1 Peter 5:8 | nepho, G3525 | Be sober-minded and alert. |
| Ma'tsar, restraint, in Hebrew: 1 use | ||
| Proverbs 25:28 | ma'tsar, H4623 | a man who does not control his temper. |
2 Peter 1:6, Akrasia and akrates, the want of self-control: 3 uses, Matthew 23:25, 1 Corinthians 7:5, 2 Timothy 3:3, Sophron and its family, a sound mind: 16 uses, Mark 5:15, Luke 8:35 and 26 more
The number after the familyG4999
Strong's dictionary numbers the six words of the sophron family G4993 to G4998. The next number, G4999, is Tabernai, which Strong's glosses huts or wooden-walled buildings, the Three Taverns where believers came to meet Paul (Acts 28:15).
The City Without Walls in Hebrew
Its verb for breaking is the verb of Jerusalem's ruined walls in Nehemiah, and Proverbs 16:32 sets a ruled spirit against a captured city.
The Hebrew of the proverb is nine words, and none of them means like. The proverb sets two pictures side by side, a city broken into with no wall and a man who has no ma'tsar for his spirit. The lexicon glosses ma'tsar control and gives its meaning as restraint, and the King James Version renders it rule.
Ruach, the man's spirit, stands 378 times, and Strong's dictionary gives it the senses wind, breath, life, anger and spirit.
The verb of the broken city is parats, to break through, which stands 49 times, and Nehemiah 1:3 uses it of the wall of Jerusalem. That the proverb borrows the language of a city breached in war is an inference from the shared verb.
And they told me, “The remnant who survived the exile are there in the province, in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.”The report Nehemiah received joins the broken wall and the burned gates to the great trouble and disgrace of the remnant in the province.
Then Hezekiah worked resolutely to rebuild all the broken sections of the wall and to raise up towers on it. He also built an outer wall and reinforced the supporting terraces of the City of David, and he produced an abundance of weapons and shields.The Hebrew for the broken sections Hezekiah rebuilt is ha-perutsah, the form the proverb uses of the city.
He who is slow to anger is better than a warrior, and he who controls his temper is greater than one who captures a city.The man who controls his temper is moshel be-rucho, one who rules over his spirit, with mashal, a verb of 81 uses.
Both proverbs join a man's spirit to a city. In Proverbs 16:32 the one who rules his spirit is greater than the warrior who takes a city. In the proverb of the broken walls the one who lacks that rule is himself the city broken into.
The Hebrew verb for restraining oneselfaphaq, H662
Hebrew also has a verb for holding oneself in, aphaq, which Strong's glosses to contain, and reflexively to abstain, and which stands seven times. It tells of Joseph before his brothers, who washed his face and came back out, "Regaining his composure" (Genesis 43:31), and who later "could no longer control himself" (Genesis 45:1). The same verb says that "Haman restrained himself" (Esther 5:10), that Saul "felt compelled" to offer the burnt offering (1 Samuel 13:12), and that the LORD has "remained quiet and restrained" (Isaiah 42:14).
The Proverb in Hebrew and in Greek
Readers of the proverb have taken its broken wall as restraint, as counsel and as silence.
The Hebrew names the man's want of restraint, and the Septuagint's Greek names his want of counsel and holds no word for self-control.
| Text | The words | In English |
|---|---|---|
| The Hebrew, as the site's tagged text reads it | 'ir perutsah 'ein chomah, 'ish asher 'ein ma'tsar le-rucho | a city broken into, there is no wall; a person who has no control for his spirit (the tagged text's word glosses) |
| The Septuagint, in Rahlfs's text | ὥσπερ πόλις τὰ τείχη καταβεβλημένη καὶ ἀτείχιστος, οὕτως ἀνὴρ ὃς οὐ μετὰ βουλῆς τι πράσσει | like a city that has its walls destroyed and is not fenced in, so is a man who does anything without counsel (John Cassian's quotation, Conferences 2.4) |
The wall is restraint over the spiritThe Hebrew text; the Berean Standard Bible
The Berean text renders the line "a man who does not control his temper", taking ruach in its sense of anger.
Against this reading, the lexicon's first gloss of ruach is wind, and the verse may speak of the whole spirit of a man as well as his anger.
The wall is counselJohn Cassian, Conferences 2.4
Cassian read the verse as the Septuagint gives it and applied the broken wall to a monk who acts without counsel.
“And again ‘like a city that has its walls destroyed and is not fenced in, so is a man who does anything without counsel.’ And how injurious the absence of this is to a monk, the illustration and figure in the passage quoted shows, by comparing it to a city that is destroyed and without walls. Herein lies wisdom, herein lies intelligence and understanding without which our inward house cannot be built, nor can spiritual riches be gathered together, as it is said: ‘A house is built with wisdom, and again it is set up with intelligence.”
John Cassian · CONFERENCE 2:4 · on Proverbs 25:28Patristic
Against this reading, the Hebrew has no word for counsel and speaks of restraint for the spirit.
The wall is silenceBede, Commentary on Proverbs
Bede read the broken wall as the want of "the wall of silence", so that "the city of the mind lies open to the darts of the enemy".
Against this reading, the Hebrew names the man's spirit and says nothing of his speech.
The Greek Words Before Paul
The Septuagint uses the adjective enkrates in several books, and Philo of Alexandria tied temperance to the love of God.
Fourth Maccabees uses sophrosyne six times, five of them in its first chapter, and in Rahlfs's text it uses the noun enkrateia at 5:34.
The adjective enkrates in the SeptuagintWisdom, Sirach, Tobit, 2 Maccabees, Susanna
In Rahlfs's text of the Septuagint the adjective enkrates stands, among other places, in Wisdom 8:21, in Sirach 6:27, 15:1, 26:15 and 27:30, and in 2 Maccabees 8:30, 10:15, 10:17 and 13:13. It also stands in Tobit 6:3 in the text of Codex Sinaiticus and once in Susanna in the version of Theodotion.
The King James Version renders Wisdom 8:21 "I could not otherwise obtain her, except God gave her me", where the one he could not obtain is wisdom and the Greek behind obtain is enkrates. Augustine read the line in his Confessions as a teaching that continence is God's gift.
Philo of Alexandria on temperanceAllegorical Interpretation 2.79 to 81
Philo read the bronze snake that Moses made (Numbers 21:9) as "the word of temperance: for temperance is opposite to pleasure". He held that temperance is the gift "only of that man who loves God". The English translation does not show which Greek word Philo used for temperance.
Enkrateia, Strength Over Oneself
Enkrateia and its family name strength held over oneself, and akrasia and akrates name the want of it.
The site's lexicon, based on Abbott-Smith, gives enkrateia the plain sense mastery or control, and with oneself understood, self-control. In Strong's dictionary the adjective enkrates is strong in a thing, masterful, and so self-controlled in appetite, while akrates is powerless, without self-control. It gives the verb enkrateuomai the sense to exercise self-restraint in diet and chastity, and the King James Version renders the noun temperance.
But if they cannot control themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.Here the verb names mastery of sexual desire, the sense Strong's gives as self-restraint in chastity.
and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;Peter writes enkrateia twice, adding self-control to knowledge and then perseverance to self-control.
Akrasia in the Gospels and the athlete in CorinthMatthew 23:25; 1 Corinthians 9:25
In Matthew 23:25 akrasia stands beside greed as what fills the inside of the cup and dish that the scribes and Pharisees clean on the outside. The athlete of 1 Corinthians 9:25, who trains with strict discipline, is described with the verb enkrateuomai.
Two spellings of one wordenkrateia and egkrateia
The site's lexicon spells the noun enkrateia, and its word-by-word text, the STEP Bible's tagging, spells it egkrateia, letter for letter from the Greek ἐγκράτεια.
Sophron and Nepho, a Sound and Sober Mind
Paul and Peter call believers to a sound mind with the sophron words and to a sober and alert one with nepho.
Strong's dictionary defines sophron as safe or sound in mind, and so self-controlled, moderate as to opinion or passion. It defines the noun sophrosyne as soundness of mind, sanity or self-control, and the verb sophronizo as to make of sound mind, which the Berean text renders train in Titus 2:4.
When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.The Berean words in his right mind render sophroneo, the verb of the sophron family.
Paul uses the same verb when he tells every believer to "think of yourself with sober judgment" (Romans 12:3).
Strong's dictionary defines nepho as to abstain from wine and keep sober, and figuratively to be discreet. Every use of nepho in the New Testament is a call or a command. Four of its six uses stand beside the end of all things or the enemy, in 1 Thessalonians 5:6 and 8 and in 1 Peter 4:7 and 5:8.
The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear-minded and sober, so that you can pray.Peter joins sophroneo, rendered clear-minded, to nepho, rendered sober, in one command whose purpose is prayer.
But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of our hope of salvation.Nepho here is joined to the picture of armour, as Paul names what the believer is to put on.
The English renderings of the sophron wordsG4993 to G4998
The Berean text renders eight of the family's sixteen uses with self-control or self-controlled. For the other eight it uses in his right mind twice, and sober judgment, of sound mind, sobriety, clear-minded, train and sensible once each.
Nephalios in Greek writersG3524, Abbott-Smith
Abbott-Smith's lexicon gives the adjective nephalios the sense of a drink not mixed with wine in classical Greek, and of a sober and temperate person in later writers such as Plutarch. The Berean text renders it temperate in 1 Timothy 3:2 and 3:11 and in Titus 2:2.
Books to Read Next
Two lexicons on the words are free to read in full.
The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
James Strong · 1890
Its Hebrew and Greek dictionaries give the short definitions of ma'tsar, enkrates, sophron and nepho that the site's lexicon carries.
Read on archive.orgA Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament
G. Abbott-Smith · 1922
Its entries give enkrateia and nephalios their senses with the New Testament verses for each sense.
Read on archive.orgFrom the Broken Wall to the Fruit of the Spirit
Proverbs pictures the man without restraint as a city anyone can enter, and the New Testament names what he lacks with words of strength over oneself, of a sound mind and of a sober watchfulness. Paul lists enkrateia among the fruit the Spirit bears, so the wall the proverb finds broken is one that God builds in His people.
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control.Paul sets sophronismos, self-control, beside power and love as God's gift, against a spirit of fear.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew and for Greek (TBESH and TBESG, Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), the Greek based on Abbott-Smith (1922), with James Strong's dictionary definitions (1890)
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Hebrew Old Testament and Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0), with Strong's numbers, morphology and interlinear glosses.
- James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, with brief dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words of the original (1890)
- G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1922)
- Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta, in the CCAT morphologically analysed text of the Septuagint (University of Pennsylvania)
- The Holy Bible, King James Version, with the Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon 8:21.
- Augustine, Confessions 6.11, translated by E. B. Pusey.
- Plato, The Republic, book 4, 430e to 431a, translated by Benjamin Jowett.
- Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, book 7, chapters 1 and 9, translated by D. P. Chase.
- Philo of Alexandria, Allegorical Interpretation II, 79 to 81, in the public-domain English translation.
- John Cassian, Conferences, Conference 2, chapter 4, on Proverbs 25:28.
- Bede, Commentary on Proverbs, on Proverbs 25:28.
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