To "chop"; specially, to beat the breast in grief
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The Greek verb kopto has a concrete sense of cutting, as when crowds cut branches, and a middle-voice sense associated with striking oneself in grief, mourning, or wailing. Context must determine which action is present.
Reader summary
Full entry for κόπτω (G2875) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek verb kopto has a concrete sense of cutting, as when crowds cut branches, and a middle-voice sense associated with striking oneself in grief, mourning, or wailing. Context must determine which action is present.
The BSB source-word alignment has 8 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include will mourn (2), cut (1), kept mourning (1), mourning for (1), they had cut (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 11:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (3), Luke (2), Revelation (2), Mark (1).
The Greek verb kopto has a concrete sense of cutting, as when crowds cut branches, and a middle-voice sense associated with striking oneself in grief, mourning, or wailing. Context must determine which action is present. The Gospels record women mourning as Jesus goes to crucifixion and mourners weeping around Jairus's daughter. Jesus' statement that the girl is asleep announces the resurrection he is about to accomplish; it is not a timeless command to stop bereavement or suppress tears.
Jesus also uses expected dancing and mourning in a comparison about a generation refusing every summons. Apocalyptic passages portray peoples mourning at the Son of Man's appearing, while Revelation 18 shows rulers wailing over Babylon's destruction because their luxurious partnership is collapsing. Not all mourning therefore has the same object or moral meaning.
Responsible teaching allows embodied grief, distinguishes lament from self-harm, attends to culture, and asks what or whom is being mourned. It must not shame tears, demand a timetable, sensationalize grief gestures, or assume that visible mourning proves repentance.
Kopto describes cutting branches in active contexts and mourning or wailing in middle-voice contexts. The narratives distinguish ordinary cutting, bereavement, public lament, refused response, eschatological recognition, and self-interested grief over lost power.
Meanwhile, everyone was weeping and mourning for her. But Jesus said, “Stop weeping; she is not dead but asleep.”
Mourners weep for Jairus's daughter while Jesus announces the death-defeating act He is about to perform.
A great number of people followed Him, including women who kept mourning and wailing for Him.
Women follow Jesus toward crucifixion while continuing visible mourning and wailing for Him.
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’
Jesus' comparison describes people who refuse both the invitation to dance and the summons to mourn.
A massive crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.
Here the active verb describes people cutting branches from trees and spreading them on the road.
Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him—even those who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. So shall it be! Amen.
Every eye sees the coming Christ, and all tribes of the earth mourn because of Him.
Then the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her.
Kings who shared Babylon's immorality and luxury wail when they see her consuming judgment.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Beats breast in grief; physical gesture of mourning rather than mere lamentation or verbal expression
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
8 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseI cut off, mourn
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 5 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
κόπτω is a primary verb - no further derivation.
Kopto reminds interpreters that one lexical form can serve distinct actions. Matthew 21 uses the active verb for cutting branches, while Luke and Revelation use forms associated with mourning and wailing. In Luke 8, the household truly faces death and the mourners' tears fit what they know. Jesus' words announce that death will not have the final word because he is about to raise the girl; they should never be used to rebuke grieving families or deny medical reality.
Luke 23 gives public space to women who mourn Jesus on the road to crucifixion, and Jesus addresses them as moral agents rather than treating their tears as spectacle. Revelation 1 links worldwide mourning to Christ's appearing. Revelation 18 shows that lament can also reveal attachment to luxury and unjust power, since the kings mourn Babylon's loss. Faithful application permits tears, silence, ritual, and culturally varied grief; offers practical and clinical support when loss overwhelms daily life; guards against self-harm; and asks what love, truth, complicity, or hope the mourning expresses without policing performance.
Luke.23.27
Kopto is a Greek verb whose active uses can mean cut, while middle forms may describe beating the breast, mourning, or wailing. Voice, direct object, and scene prevent the concrete and grief-related senses from being blended.
Hebrew Scripture preserves individual and communal lament, commands care for mourners, and refuses to make grief incompatible with faith. The New Testament carries that honesty through Jesus' tears, crucifixion mourning, resurrection hope, and the promise that God will finally wipe away tears.