A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament

by William Greenfield

The learning of a living language from those who seek it is no trifling task; but a language which must be learned from books, presents much greater difficulties; and to many persons the mastery of the Greek tongue looks like the labor of a lifetime. It is; and yet it is possible for studious Bible readers to learn the things they specially need to know, with an amount of labor which need not appall or dishearten any diligent student.

There are contained in the Greek New Testament about 5594 words; but in the whole Greek literature the words are a great multitude, which perhaps no man has ever numbered. The student of the Scriptures is not anxious to master or explore this vast wealth of Greek literature, but his ambition is to know something of those 5594 New Testament words in which the message of God's mercy is conveyed to fallen man. Hence he may pass by the bulk of Greek literature, and confine his investigations to those few Greek words which are used in the New Testament to convey to man the treasures of Divine truth.

A lexicon of the entire Greek language might extend through thousands of pages. There stands on the shelves of the writer a copy of Stephen's "Thesaures Grææ Linguæ," in eight folio volumes, (London, 1816-1825,) which contains more than thirteen thousand large, closely printed pages. A later edition of the same work is still larger; and there are critics and students who would find use for a lexicon as elaborate as this; but for the great mass of Biblical students most of this material would be entirely useless, and a very small volume would contain all they would find necessary in their study of the Scriptures of truth. Thus a portable volume, confining itself to the definition of the words included in the New Testament, could give them fuller treatment than a very large volume which, covering the entire language would be obliged to condense and abridge at every point, omitting perhaps the very matter most desired by a student of the Sacred Word.

There is another consideration; the Greek of the New Testament differs materially in its character from the classical Green, or from the Greek language as a whole. About b.c. 288, the law of Moses was translated from Hebrew into Greek, by request of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who sought everywhere for books to enrich his great library at Alexandria. Subsequently other portions were translated, and hence, we have what is known as the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. This was largely used among the Jewish people in Egypt and elsewhere in the time of our Saviour. It was a Greek version of a Hebrew book, and it was through this book, as well as by intercourse with Grecian people and foreigners of the Jewish stock, that the Jewish people became acquainted with the Greek tongue. But the Greek of the Septuagint was full of Hebrew ideas and idioms, and hence the Greek of the Jews in Palestine, and of the New Testament which is also saturated with Old Testament ideas, differed from the ordinary language of the Greeks, new meanings having been imparted to various words, in order that they might represent Hebrew words and Hebrew ideas. For example, when the Greek word hades is used, we are not thereby committed to a belief in all the fabulous ideas of the Greeks concerning the abode of the dead, for the word was but the representative of the Hebrew word sheol, which is almost always translated hades in the Greek Testament. Hence in studying this Greek word in the New Testament we are not to go to the Greek classics to find out what they mean by the word hades, but rather to the Hebrew prophets to learn in what sense they use the Hebrew word sheol, of which it is the Greek equivalent. So the word diatheke in classic Greek signifies a will, testament, covenant, and so the term in the common English version is translated in both these ways. But in the Septuagint the word diatheke is used to translate the Hebrew word berith, which signifies a covenant, but does not signify a will or testament.[^1*] Hence, instead of speaking of "The New Testament" we should more correctly call it the "The New Covenant." A variety of instances might be adduced where New Testament Greek words have meaning widely different from the same words in classic Greek.

It must also be remembered, that there are words in the New Testament which are not found at all in the classical writers. When new ideas are to be conveyed, new words must be found to convey them. In the language of the Hindus there is no word for home, simply because the Hindu has no home. The idea of a home as understood by Christians, is utterly foreign to the Hindu nation and religion. There are heathen nations that have no word for gratitude, because gratitude is unknown to them; so the word agape or charity, which describes unselfish love, a love which reaches to enemies, and which seeks no personal gratification or reward,—that love which is of God, and concerning which it is said, "God is Love," refers to something unknown to the heathen world. They had no word to express it, because they had not the thing itself to express.

These illustrations indicate some of the peculiarities of the New Testament Greek, and serve to show use why the student of the Bible needs an especial apparatus for studying the Greek New Testament. For this purpose, he has been most generously furnished with New Testament lexicons, in different languages, Latin, German, and English, by the labor of devout and learned students. Among the most noteworthy may be mentioned Robinson's Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, and Prof. J. H. Thayer's later and more elaborate Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, based upon Prof. Grimm's get Lexicon; which is well adapted to meet the needs of the critical student.

The meaning of words is determined finally by their usage by those who employ them, and the only way to settle the sense of disputed and difficult words is carefully to examine each word in its connection, in all the passages where it is used, and in the light of that examination decide as to its meaning or meanings. In some of the more elaborate lexicons a large number of passages are thus cited, illustrating the use of the words under consideration, and it some cases authors have endeavored to give nearly every passage where a word occurs in the New Testament. This however, cumbers the lexicon with a large amount of material which in most instances is of little use. This examination and comparison of passages, the careful student should make for himself, and his interests in this direction are better served by the use of a concordance; and for those who wish to investigate carefully the meaning of Greek words in the New Testament, ample provision has been made in the Critical Greek and English Concordance, prepared by Prof. C. F. Hudson, under the direction of H. L. Hastings, and revised and completed by the late Ezra Abbot, D.D., LL.D., Profession of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Divinity School of Harvard University.

This book contains (1) the more than five thousand words in the Greek Testament, in alphabetical order. (2) Reference to every passage where those words occur. (3) Every English word which is used to translate the given Greek word. (4) The passages in which the Greek word is translated by each English word, classified and set by themselves, so that the more usual translations are also exhibited. (5) The various readings of the leading critical editions and manuscripts of the Greek Testament. (6) An English index, so that with this book a person who does not know a letter of the Greek alphabet is enabled to find the original for any English word in the New Testament, learn in how many places it occurs, and in how many ways it is translated, so that by examining every passage, he may have the data before him for making up and independent judgment from the facts in the case.

This Greek Concordance obviates the necessity for an exhaustive citation of the passages containing any particular Greek word, and brings us back to the proper sphere of a Lexicon, as a book defining the words contained in the language, with occasional references to passages which illustrate the different meanings; and when equipped with Hudson's Concordance, a manual lexicon of New Testament Greek serves the purpose of the ordinary student.

It is for the accommodation of such students, who know little of the Greek language, but who desire to "search the Scriptures," and of others more scholarly, who yet find it needful to refresh their memories as to the sense of Greek words, that this Lexicon is offered. It was originally prepared by William Greenfield, who was born in London, in 1799, and died there November 5, 1831. He edited Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, a Syriac New Testament, a Hebrew New Testament, and prepared an abridgement of Schmidt's Greek Concordance. In 1830 he was appointed editor of the Foreign Versions of the British and Foreign Bible Society; and though he died at an early age, he had a high reputation as an accomplished linguist.