Greek Word Study | 3626: homemaker (oikouros)

In Titus 2:5, oikouros is translated...

• CSB "workers at home"
• HCSB “homemakers”
• NIV “to be busy at home”
• NLT “to work in their homes”
• KJV “keepers at home”
• NTMS “industrious in their homes”
• MSG “keep a good house”

Commenting on Titus 2:5, Wilkinson writes, “The word here for homemaker is a compound Greek word from two common words.  The first is the usual word for ‘home’ or ‘house and its environs.’ The second is the word for ‘work’ or ‘labor.’”  (Bruce Wilkinson, Experiencing Spiritual Breakthroughs, p. 148.)

Commenting on Titus 2:5, Stanley N. Helton describes homemakers as “supervis[ing] their households with discretion and industry.” (“Titus 2:5—Must Women Stay at Home? Essays on Women in Earliest Christianity,” ed. Carrol D. Osburn, p. 376.)

Drawing from Strong's Concordance, Elizabeth George says, “To be a homemaker means to be a stayer-at-home, to be domestically inclined, a good housekeeper, and a keeper at home.” (A Woman After God’s Own Heart, p. 162.)

Donald Guthrie says, “A woman’s primary sphere of activity and contribution is the home.” (Tyndale NT Commentaries, The Pastoral Epistles, Titus 2:5.)

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown write, “We are to be active in or busy with household duties.”

Curtis Vaughn, in The New Testament From 26 Translations, says it means the wife is to be a “home lover.”