Five-minute study · Day 354 · Galatians 6
Galatians 6:9
A word worth stopping on: be weary / lose heart ἐκκακέω ekkakeo
'And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.' The Greek word translated 'be weary' is ekkakeo. It is built from two parts: ek, meaning out of, and kakos, meaning bad or evil. The compound carries the image of someone who has been worn down so thoroughly by difficulty that they collapse outward, exhausted to the point of surrender. Paul writes this to a church that is confused, divided, and tired. The Galatians have been pulled between the gospel of grace and a return to legalism. They are doing the right thing, and it is costing them. Paul does not tell them the cost will decrease. He tells them a harvest is coming. The word 'due season' is kairos, the appointed time, the moment that arrives on God's schedule. The reaping has a date. You do not know the date. You keep planting.
Word study: be weary / lose heart
- Greek
- ἐκκακέω
- Pronounced
- ekkakeo
- Strong's
- G1573
- Definition
- To become weary, to lose heart, to become exhausted to the point of giving up. From ek (out of, indicating thoroughness or completion) + kakos (bad, evil, worthless). To be 'badded out,' to reach the limit of endurance.
Ekkakeo appears 6 times in the New Testament (Luke 18:1, 2 Corinthians 4:1, 4:16, Galatians 6:9, Ephesians 3:13, 2 Thessalonians 3:13). BDAG defines it as 'to lose one's motivation in continuing a desirable pattern of conduct or activity, lose enthusiasm, be discouraged.' Every occurrence involves a warning against quitting something good because the process has become exhausting. Luke 18:1 introduces the parable of the persistent widow with the instruction that 'men ought always to pray, and not to faint (ekkakeo).' The word is the opposite of perseverance. It names the specific moment when a person who has been doing the right thing for a long time looks at the road ahead and cannot summon the energy to continue.
Longenecker's commentary on Galatians places 6:9 within the letter's closing ethical section (5:25-6:10). Paul has spent the bulk of the letter arguing that justification comes by faith, not by works of the law. Now he addresses the daily conduct that flows from that faith. The agricultural metaphor in 6:7-9 is deliberate: 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap' (v. 7). The sowing is the daily practice of love, generosity, and faithfulness Paul has described in 5:22-26 and 6:1-6. The reaping is the harvest that follows. Between sowing and reaping is the gap, the season of waiting, and ekkakeo is the temptation that lives inside that gap.
Longenecker notes that Paul pairs ekkakeo with a conditional clause: 'if we faint not' (me eklyomenoi). The verb eklyo means to be loosened, to be relaxed, to go slack. The image is of a rope going limp. Paul stacks two exhaustion words: do not collapse outward (ekkakeo) and do not go slack (eklyo). The harvest depends on sustained tension. The farmer who plants in March and quits in June does not eat in October. The timeline between the act of faithfulness and the result of faithfulness is not under human control. Kairos, the due season, belongs to God.
Historical context · 1st century CE
The Agricultural Calendar of Ancient Galatia
Galatia, the Roman province in central Anatolia (modern Turkey), was an agricultural region of rolling highlands, river valleys, and arid plateaus. The primary crops included wheat, barley, and flax. The growing season followed a pattern familiar across the Mediterranean world: autumn sowing (October-November), winter dormancy, spring growth, and summer harvest (June-July for barley, July-August for wheat). The gap between sowing and reaping was approximately seven to eight months. During that interval, the farmer could see nothing happening. The seed was underground. The field looked empty.
Longenecker observes that Paul's audience in the Galatian churches would have understood the agricultural metaphor viscerally. Most of them were either farmers or economically dependent on farming. The act of sowing was an act of faith: you buried your seed supply in dirt and waited. If the rains came, if the temperature held, if the locusts stayed away, you reaped. The investment was front-loaded. The return was delayed. Ekkakeo, in this context, names the temptation to stop tending the field during the long months when nothing visible is growing.
The Galatian churches themselves were in a season of uncertainty. The letter addresses a crisis: teachers had arrived after Paul's departure, insisting that Gentile believers must be circumcised and observe the Torah to be fully justified before God. The churches were wavering. Some had already begun to adopt these requirements (3:1-3). Paul's letter is an urgent intervention. The ethical exhortation at the end of the letter (including 6:9) addresses believers who are tired of swimming against the current. They have been told the gospel of grace is insufficient. They are being pressured to add legal observance to faith. Paul tells them to keep sowing. The harvest is coming. The temptation to collapse, to give in, to accept the easier path of legalistic conformity, is ekkakeo. The antidote is the promise of kairos: God's appointed season, when the crop comes in.
For reflection
Ekkakeo is the word for the moment you almost quit doing the right thing because the right thing has cost you too much for too long. Where are you in the gap between sowing and reaping? What good work have you been doing for months, maybe years, that has not yet produced the result you expected? Paul says the harvest has a date. You do not control the date. You control whether you are still standing in the field when it arrives.
The conditional is sobering: 'if we faint not.' The harvest is promised. Your presence at the harvest is conditional on endurance. Keep your hands in the soil.
Sources: BDAG; Longenecker, "Galatians"