Exploring the Meaning of Antepo in Greek

ἀντεῖπον means “to contradict.” It appears in Jesus’ promise of Spirit-given speech in Luke 21:15 and in the apostles’ public defense after a healing in Acts 4:14.

Root and Related Words

ἀντεῖπον is connected with the Greek verb epo (εἶπον), “to say” (Strong’s G2036), and with the Greek preposition anti (ἀντί), “for” (Strong’s G473). The combination highlights the idea of speech set in response to speech: saying something “against” what has been said.

Occurrences

“for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.” (Luke 21:15)

Here ἀντεῖπον sits inside a paired description of what opponents cannot do to the testimony Jesus will supply: they will be unable “to withstand” and unable “to contradict.” The setting is verbal conflict (“a mouth”) in which the speaker’s words carry a kind of durability under pressure. “Contradict” frames the adversaries’ response as argumentative speech—an attempt to answer back in a way that overturns what is being said. Yet the promise is that the “mouth and wisdom” given will leave adversaries without a successful counter-saying: their denial cannot gain traction because it cannot meet the testimony with a defeating reply. The verb thus marks the point where opposition would normally turn from mere hostility into articulated refutation, and it declares that even that strongest form of verbal resistance will fail.

“Seeing the man who was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.” (Acts 4:14)

In Acts, ἀντεῖπον is rendered in the scene as the inability to speak “against it.” The context is concrete and public: the healed man is “standing with them,” visible to all. The verb describes not a lack of words in general, but the collapse of a specific kind of speech—speech that would contradict what the situation shows. The opponents’ problem is not merely that the apostles have spoken well; the healed man’s presence makes contradiction itself unworkable. The phrase “they could say nothing against it” portrays the would-be rebuttal as speech aimed at negating or discrediting what is before their eyes. ἀντεῖπον therefore captures a forensic moment: the observable outcome blocks the possibility of a credible counter-statement.

Sense and Usage

Across these passages, “to contradict” functions as a specialized kind of opposition: not physical resistance, but verbal counter-assertion that tries to overturn a claim. Luke 21:15 places contradiction alongside the effort “to withstand,” implying an escalating pressure on testimony: first opponents attempt to stand against it, then they attempt to answer it with a defeating contradiction. The promise is that the given “mouth and wisdom” will leave adversaries unable to do either, so the struggle is framed at the level of speech and reasoning rather than force.

Acts 4:14 shows the same verb in a different angle: contradiction fails not because of rhetorical advantage alone, but because the facts on display restrict what can plausibly be said. The healed man “standing with them” turns the debate into a situation where a counter-saying would have to deny what everyone can see. In this way ἀντεῖπον highlights how contradiction depends on having room to reinterpret, dispute, or negate; when an event is publicly manifest, contradiction becomes speech without footing.

Together the two occurrences show contradiction as an act of speech directed against a testimony, whether that testimony is spoken (“a mouth and wisdom”) or embodied in a visible result (“the man who was healed standing with them”). In Luke the emphasis falls on the source and quality of the witness—wisdom that adversaries cannot meet with effective counter-argument. In Acts the emphasis falls on the evidential weight of what accompanies the witness—an outcome that makes a counter-assertion impossible. In both, ἀντεῖπον is the verbal mechanism of attempted negation, and both contexts present it as blocked: either by wisdom that cannot be overturned or by evidence that cannot be denied.

Imagery

The verb carries the imagery of contested speech: an adversarial “answer back” that seeks to cancel a claim. Luke 21:15 pictures the pressure point as the human “mouth,” set against “adversaries” who want to meet words with words but cannot. Acts 4:14 supplies a courtroom-like visual: the healed man standing present, while opponents are silenced from speaking “against it.” In these scenes, contradiction is not merely disagreement; it is the attempted verbal undoing of public testimony—and it fails when the testimony is given with wisdom or secured by what is plainly seen.

Sources: Lexical data from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and the Translators Brief Lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (STEPBible, CC BY). Occurrence data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament (STEPBible, CC BY). Scripture quotations from the World English Bible (public domain).