Help
King James Dictionary [1]
HELP, A regular verb the old past tense and participle holp and holpen being obsolete.
1. To aid to assist to lend strength or means towards effecting a purpose as, to help a man in his work to help another in raising a building to help one to pay his debts to help the memory or the understanding. 2. To assist to succor to lend means of deliverance as, to help one in distress to help one out of prison. 3. To relieve to cure, or to mitigate pain or disease.
Help and ease them, but by no means bemoan them.
The true calamus helps a cough.
Sometimes with of as, to help one of blindness.
4. To remedy to change for the better.
Cease to lament for what thou cans't not help.
5. To prevent to hinder. The evil approached, and who can help it? 6. To forbear to avoid.
I cannot help remarking the resemblance between him and our author--
To help forward, to advance by assistance.
To help on, to forward to promote by aid.
To help out, to aid in delivering from difficulty, or to aid in completing a design.
The god of learning and of light,
Would want a god himself to help him out.
To help over, to enable to surmount as, to help one over a difficulty.
To help off, to remove by help as, to help off time. Unusual.
To help to, to supply with to furnish with.
Whom they would help to a kingdom. 1Maccabees.
Also, to present to at table as, to help one to a glass of wine.
HELP, To lend aid to contribute strength or means.
A generous present helps to persuade, as well as an agreeable person.
To help out, to lend aid to bring a supply.
HELP, n. Aid assistance strength or means furnished towards promoting an object, or deliverance from difficulty or distress.
Give us help from trouble for vain is the help of man. Psalms 60
1. That which gives assistance he or that which contributes to advance a purpose.
Virtue is a friend and a help to nature.
God is a very present help in time of trouble. Psalms 46
2. Remedy relief. The evil is done there is no help for it. There is no help for the man his disease is incurable. 3. A hired man or woman a servant.
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words [2]
‛Âzar (עָזַר, 5826), “to help, assist, aid.” This word and its derivatives are common in both ancient and modern Hebrew. The verb occurs about 80 times in the biblical text. ‛Âzar is first found in the Old Testament in Jacob’s deathbed blessing of Joseph: “… The God of thy father, who shall help thee …” (Gen. 49:25).
Help or aid comes from a variety of sources: Thirty-two kings “helped” Ben-hadad (1 Kings 20:6); one city “helps” another (Josh. 10:33); even false gods are believed to be of “help” (2 Chron. 28:23). Of course, the greatest source of help is God Himself; He is “the helper of the fatherless” (Ps. 10:14). God promises: “I will help thee” (Isa. 41:10); “and the Lord shall help them, and deliver them …” (Ps. 37:40).
Webster's Dictionary [3]
(1):
(v. t.) Remedy; relief; as, there is no help for it.
(2):
(v. t.) Strength or means furnished toward promoting an object, or deliverance from difficulty or distress; aid; ; also, the person or thing furnishing the aid; as, he gave me a help of fifty dollars.
(3):
(v. i.) To lend aid or assistance; to contribute strength or means; to avail or be of use; to assist.
(4):
(v. t.) To wait upon, as the guests at table, by carving and passing food.
(5):
(v. t.) A helper; one hired to help another; also, thew hole force of hired helpers in any business.
(6):
(v. t.) To forbear; to avoid.
(7):
(v. t.) To prevent; to hinder; as, the evil approaches, and who can help it?
(8):
(v. t.) To change for the better; to remedy.
(9):
(v. t.) To furnish with relief, as in pain or disease; to be of avail against; - sometimes with of before a word designating the pain or disease, and sometimes having such a word for the direct object.
(10):
(v. t.) To furnish with the means of deliverance from trouble; as, to help one in distress; to help one out of prison.
(11):
(v. t.) To furnish with strength or means for the successful performance of any action or the attainment of any object; to aid; to assist; as, to help a man in his work; to help one to remember; - the following infinitive is commonly used without to; as, "Help me scale yon balcony."
(12):
(v. t.) Specifically, a domestic servant, man or woman.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [4]
With the sense of that which brings aid, support, or deliverance, "help" (noun and vb.) represents a large variety of words in Hebrew and Greek (noun 7, verb 16). A principal Hebrew word is עזר , ‛āzar , "to help," with the corresponding nouns עזר , ‛ēzer , עזרה , ‛ezrāh ; a chief Greek word is βοηθέω , boēthéō ( Matthew 15:25; Mark 9:22 , Mark 9:24 , etc.). True help is to be sought for in Yahweh, in whom, in the Old Testament, the believer is constantly exhorted to trust, with the renouncing of all other confidences (Psalm 20:2; Psalm 33:20; Psalm 42:5; Psalm 46:1; Psalm 115:9 , Psalm 115:10 , Psalm 115:11; Psalm 121:2; Isaiah 41:10 , Isaiah 41:13 , Isaiah 41:14 , etc.). In Romans 8:26 it is said, "the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity," the verb here ( συναντιλαμβάνεται , sunantilambánetai ) having the striking meaning of to "take hold along with one." In the story of Eden, Eve is spoken of as "a help meet" for Adam (Genesis 2:18 , Genesis 2:20 ). The idea in "meet" is not so much "suitability," though that is implied, as likeness, correspondence in nature (Vulgate, similem sibi ). One like himself, as taken from him, the woman would be an aid and companion to the man in his tasks.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [5]
besides its ordinary signification of assistance in general, has in two passages of the N.T. a technical application.
1. HELPS (βοήθειαι), nautical apparatus for securing a vessel, when leaking, by means of ropes, chains, etc., passed around in the process of "undergirding" (q.v.), in the emergency of a storm (Acts 27:17). (See Ship).
2. HELPS (άντιλήψεις; Vulg. opitulationes; 1 Corinthians 12:28). This Greek word, signifying aids or assistances, has also a meaning, among others, corresponding. to that in this passage, in the classical writers (e.g. Diod. Sic. 1, 87). In the Sept. it answers to עֶזְרָה (Psalms 22:19), to מָעוֹן (Psalms 108:12), and to זָרוֹע (Psalms 83:8). It is found in the same sense, Sirach 11:12; 2 Maccabees 11:26; and in Josephus (War, 4, 5, 1). In the N.T. it occurs once, viz. in the enumeration of the several orders or classes of persons possessing miraculous gifts among the primitive Christians (ut supra), where it seems to be used by metonymy; the abstract for the concrete, and to mean helpers; like the words δυνάμεις, "miracles," i.e. workers of miracles; κυβερνήσεις, "governments," i.e. governors, etc., in the same enumeration. Many persons h1 this country, by a similar idiom, call their servants "help." Great difficulty attends the attempt to ascertain the nature of the office so designated among Christians. Theophylact explains ἀντιλήψεις, ἀντεχεσθαι τῶν ἀσθενῶν, helping or supporting the infirm. So also Gennadius, in AEcumenius. But this seems like an inference from the etymology (see the Greek of Acts 20:35).
It has been assumed by some eminent modern writers that the several "orders" mentioned in Acts 20:28 correspond respectively to the several "gifts" of the Spirit enumerated in Acts 20:8-9. In order, however, to make the two enumerations tally, it is necessary to make "divers kinds of tongues" and "interpretation of tongues" in the one answer to "diversities of tongues" in the other, which, in the present state of the received text, does not seem to be a complete correspondence. The result of the collation is that ἀντιλήψεις answers to "prophecy;" whence it has been inferred that these persons were such as were qualified with the gift of "lower prophecy," to help the Christians in the public devotions (Barrington's Miscellanea Sacra, 1, 166; Macknight on 1 Corinthians 12:10-28). Another result is that "governments" answers to "dissenting of spirits." To both these Dr. Hales very reasonably objects as unlikely, and pronounces this tabular view to be "perplexed and embarrassing" (New Analysis, etc., Lond. 1830, 3:289). Bishop Horsley has adopted this classification of the gifts and office-bearers, and points out as "helps," i.e. persons gifted with "prophecies or prediction," such persons as Mark, Tychicus, Onesimus. Vitringa, from a comparison of 1 Corinthians 12:28-30, infers that the ἀντιλήψεις denote those who had the gift of interpreting foreign languages (De Synag. Vet. 2, 505, Franque. 1696); which, though certainly possible, as an arbitrary use of a very significant word, stands in need of confirmation by actual instances. Dr. Lightfoot also, according to his biographer, adopted the same plan and arrived at the same conclusion (Strype's Life of Lightfoot, prefixed to his Works, p. 4, Lond. 1684). But Lightfoot himself explains the word "persons who accompanied the apostles, baptized those who were converted by them, and were sent to places to which they, being employed in other things, could not come, as Mark, Timothy, Titus." He observes (ii, 781) that the Talmudists sometimes call the Levites מסעדי לכהנים, "the helpers of the priests." Similar catalogues of miraculous gifts and officers occur Romans 12:6-8, and Ephesians 4:11-12; but they neither correspond in number nor in the order of enumeration. In the former, "prophecy" stands first, and in the latter second; and in the former many of the terms are of wide import, as "ministering," while minute distinctions are made between others, as between "teaching" and "exhortation," "giving" and "showing mercy." Other writers pursue different methods, and arrive at different conclusions. For instance, Hammond, arguing from the etymology of the word, and from passages in the early writers, which describe the office of relieving the poor as peculiarly connected with that of the apostles and bishops by the deacons, infers that ἀντιλ . "denotes a special part of the office of those men which are set down at the beginning of the verse." He also explains κυβερνήσεος as another part of their office (Hammond, Comment. ad loc.). Schletisner understands "deacons who had the care of the sick." Rosenmü ller, "Diaconi qui pauperibus, peregrinis, aegrotis, mortuis, procurandis praserant."
Bishop Pearce thinks that both these words may have been originally put in the margin to explain δυνάμεις, "miracles or powers," and urges that ἀντιλ is nowhere mentioned as a gift of the Spirit, and that it is not recapitulated in Ephesians 4:29-30. Certainly the omission of these two words would nearly produce exactitude in the recapitulation. Bowyer adopts the same conjecture, but it is without support from MSS. or versions. He also observes that to the end of Ephesians 4:28 some copies of the Vulgate add "interpretationes sermonum," ἑρμηνει῎ας γλωσσῶν; as also the later Syriac, Hilary, and Ambrose. This addition would make the recapitulation perfect. Chrysostom and all the Greek interpreters consider the ἀντιλ and κυβερν. as importing the same thing, namely, functionaries so called with reference to the two different-parts of their office: the ἀντιλ superintending the care of the poor, sick, and strangers; the κυβερν the burial of the dead and the executorship of their effects including the care of their widows and orphans, rather managers than governors (Blomfield's Recensio Synopt.). After all, it must be confessed, with Doddridge, that "we can only guess at the meaning of the words in question, having no principles on which to proceed in fixing it absolutely" (Family Expositor, on 1 Corinthians 12:28). (See Alberti, Glossar. p. 123; Suicer, Thesaurus, in voc.; Salmasius, De Faenore Trapezitico. p. 409, — Wolfii Curae Philolog. Basil. 1741.) Stanley remarks (Commentae ad loc.) that the word "ἀντίληψις, as used in the Sept., is not (like διακονία ) help ministered by an inferior to a superior, but be a superior to an inferior (comp. Psalms 89:18; Sirach 11:12; Sirach 51:7), and, thus is inapplicable to the ministrations of the deacon to the presbyter." Probably it is a general term (hence the plur.) to include those occasional labors of evangelists and special laborers, such as Apollos in ancient times and eminent revivalists in modern days, who have from time to time been raised up as powerful but independent. promoters of the Gospel. (See Spiritual Gifts).
