Understanding the Meaning of Apallasso in Greek

ἀπαλλάσσω means “to release.” It appears in a legal warning about avoiding imprisonment, in a report of healings connected with Paul, and in a statement about deliverance from lifelong bondage.

Root and Related Words

ἀπαλλάσσω is formed from ἀπό (apo), “away from” (Strong’s G575), and ἀλλάσσω (allasso), “to change” (Strong’s G236). The combination gives the verb a directional force (“away from”) joined to the idea of alteration (“change”), shaping how “release” is heard in context: a movement away from a prior condition.

Occurrences

“For when you are going with your adversary before the magistrate, try diligently on the way to be released from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.” (Luke 12:58)

Here “to be released” is framed as an urgent objective pursued “on the way” before the legal process tightens. The verse sketches an escalating chain—adversary to magistrate, then judge, then officer, then prison—and the verb marks the desired break in that chain: separation from the adversary’s claim before coercion takes over. The release envisioned is practical and immediate: it is sought through diligence and timeliness, not after the judge’s handoff has occurred. In the logic of the sentence, release functions as the alternative to being “drag[ged]” and “throw[n] into prison,” so the word stands at the pivot between a resolved dispute and enforced confinement.

“so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out.” (Acts 19:12)

In this narrative note, the emphasis falls on tangible movement: items are “carried away from his body to the sick,” and then afflictions leave the sufferers—“the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out.” Within that cascade of departures, ἀπαλλάσσω contributes the idea of release as an actual removal from persons who are burdened. The verse describes two kinds of oppressive realities—diseases and evil spirits—and in both cases the result is expressed as going away from the afflicted. The word’s sense fits the scene’s repeated outward motion: what harms is no longer attached; it is driven out, leaving the sick no longer held by what troubled them.

“and might deliver all of them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” (Hebrews 2:15)

Here “deliver” targets a deep, enduring condition: a lifelong state of being “subject to bondage” arising “through fear of death.” The release is not pictured as a momentary escape from an external opponent in court, but as liberation from a constraining mastery that has shaped an entire life. The verse gathers its objects broadly—“all of them”—and describes the captivity as continuous (“all their lifetime”), so the verb carries the weight of emancipation from an ongoing, defining servitude. Release in this setting is set against fear’s power to bind: it is a deliverance that ends subjection.

Sense and Usage

Across these three contexts, “release” is consistently expressed as movement away from a constraining relationship. In Luke 12:58, the constraint is juridical and interpersonal: an “adversary” presses a case, and the threatened outcome is incarceration. Release is sought before the legal machinery completes its transfer from magistrate to judge to officer; the verb thus sits in a narrow window of opportunity, where separation from the adversary prevents the hardening of the dispute into punishment.

In Acts 19:12, the constraint is bodily and spiritual, and the description is explicitly expulsive: diseases “departed” and spirits “went out.” The word’s force aligns with the verse’s verbs of exit, conveying release as detachment from what clings to human life and health. The emphasis is not on negotiating terms (as in Luke) but on the result: the afflictions are no longer present with the sufferers.

In Hebrews 2:15, the constraint is existential and prolonged: “fear of death” produces lifelong bondage. Release here is framed as deliverance from a dominating condition rather than from a single episode. The verse’s language of duration (“all their lifetime”) and subjection (“subject to bondage”) gives the verb a sweeping scope: to be released is to move out from under a tyranny that has held a person’s whole course of life.

Taken together, these uses show that ἀπαλλάσσω can speak of release in multiple registers—legal, physical/spiritual, and lifelong bondage—while keeping the same basic contour: a person is freed away from what holds, presses, or confines. The scenes differ in mechanism (diligent effort on the way; afflictions departing; deliverance from fear-driven bondage), but in each the verb marks the decisive shift from being under constraint to being free of it.

Imagery

The passages attach vivid imagery to “release.” Luke presents a road to court and the looming architecture of custody—judge, officer, prison—so release is imagined as escape before the cell door ever closes. Acts offers a picture of departure as healing: what harms “departed” and “went out,” an outward motion away from the sick. Hebrews portrays an interior captivity that lasts a lifetime, so release is imagined as the breaking of bondage born from fear, ending a long subjection and opening the possibility of a life no longer governed by that fear.

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).