Exploring the Meaning of Ektroma in Greek

ἔκτρωμα means “untimely birth” and appears once in the New Testament, in Paul’s resurrection testimony in 1 Corinthians 15:8. In that single occurrence it functions as a vivid image within a sequence of reported appearances.

Root and Related Words

ἔκτρωμα is related to the preposition ἐκ (ek), “out from” (Strong’s G1537).

Occurrences

“and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also.” (1 Corinthians 15:8)

In this line Paul places his own encounter within an ordered series marked by “last of all.” The phrase “as to the child born at the wrong time” provides the image through which ἔκτρωμα is heard: the appearance to Paul is compared, not simply to an ordinary birth, but to an untimely one. The sentence keeps the main action in focus—“he appeared to me also”—and uses the birth image to color the manner in which Paul understands his place in the sequence. The word therefore contributes a temporal and qualitative comparison inside the structure of the verse: Paul’s experience is narrated as an appearing, but framed as something out of due season when set beside the others implied by “last of all.”

The wording also shows that ἔκτρωμα is not offered as a detached metaphor but as a self-description within testimony. Paul does not merely recount an event; he interprets its timing in relation to the larger pattern of appearances. The comparison “as to” ties the image directly to the appearing itself, so that the force of the term lies in how it situates that appearing—its lateness, its irregularity, its being “at the wrong time”—within the sequence Paul is presenting.

Sense and Usage

Because ἔκτρωμα occurs only here, its sense must be read in the tight frame the verse supplies: a birth-image used to express dissonance in timing. The verse does not elaborate medically or narratively on birth; instead it draws on the starkness of the idea of an untimely birth to communicate, in compressed form, the felt mismatch between what is “in time” and what is “at the wrong time.” The result is an image that carries both chronology and contrast. Chronology is explicit: “last of all.” Contrast is carried by the simile: Paul’s case is not pictured as the expected, fitting arrival, but as an arrival marked by wrong timing.

The phrasing “child born at the wrong time” shows how the definition “untimely birth” functions idiomatically: it is not merely a statement about a calendar date, but a way of presenting a birth as discordant with proper sequence. In the verse, that discordance is mapped onto the order of appearances. The word thus serves as a rhetorical bridge between Paul’s placement at the end (“last of all”) and the fact of the appearance (“he appeared to me also”), expressing that his inclusion in the chain is real, yet experienced as anomalous with respect to when it occurred.

Within the single sentence, ἔκτρωμα also shapes tone. A birth is ordinarily associated with fittingness and arrival; qualifying it as “at the wrong time” introduces a jarring element. That jarring note matches the verse’s emphasis on sequence: if others’ appearances are presupposed as earlier, then Paul’s is not only later but felt as out of step. The metaphor therefore intensifies the meaning of “last of all” by adding a concrete picture of lateness that is more than simple delay: it is lateness perceived as irregular.

The association with ἐκ (ek), “out from,” fits the directional shape of the imagery in the verse: a birth is, by nature, an emergence, an “out from” movement. In 1 Corinthians 15:8, that emergence is made discordant by the qualifier “at the wrong time,” reinforcing that Paul’s self-comparison is about the manner of arrival into the sequence he is describing. The term’s imagery holds together emergence and timing: an arrival that is real and decisive (“he appeared to me also”), yet characterized as untimely when measured against the established order implied by “last of all.”

Imagery

In 1 Corinthians 15:8 the imagery of ἔκτρωμα is striking precisely because it is brief. A single birth-image stands alongside the solemn report of an appearance, allowing the reader to feel the disjunction between the event and its timing without extended explanation. The verse leaves the image in place—“the child born at the wrong time”—so that the metaphor’s force rests on its immediacy: an emergence that comes, but comes out of season, attached to Paul’s place at the end of the sequence.

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).