



Produced by Stanley A. Bridgeford





                               A
                      Greek–English Lexicon
                              to
                        The New Testament

                       Revised and Enlarged

                              by

                      Thomas Sheldon Green

                       with a preface by
                         H. L. Hastings
            Editor of the Christian, Boston, U.S.A.

                             and

                         A Supplement

                 Prepared by Wallace N. Stearns
                   Under The Supervision of
                  J. H. Thayer, D.D., Litt.D.

             Professor of New-Testament Criticism
                  and Interpretation in the
            Divinity School of Harvard University

   Containing Additional Words and Forms to be found in one or
   another of the Greek Texts in current use, especially those
          of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Treglles, Westcott
               and Hort, and the Revisers of 1881

                      THIRTY-THIRD THOUSAND

                            Boston
                   H. L. Hastings, 47 Cornhill
                             1896

                       Copyright, 1896
                     Boston, Mass, U.S.A.
                        H. L. Hastings
                      Repository Press,
                         47 Cornhill
                  Greek-Eng Lexicon–33M–6, '96
                       Printed in America

PREFACE

The hidden depths both of the wisdom and knowledge of God were
manifest, not only in the revelation of his will contained in the
Scriptures of truth, but in the manner of giving that revelation, and in
the language in which is was given.

Egypt had wisdom, but it was enshrined in hieroglyphics so obscure that
their meaning faded centuries ago from the memory of mankind, and for
many successive ages no man on earth could penetrate their mysteries.
Assyria and Babylon had literature, art, and science; but with a
language written in seven or eight hundred cuneiform signs, some of them
having fifty different meanings, what wonder is it that for more than
two thousand years the language and literature of these nations was
lost, buried, and forgotten? The vast literature of China has survived
the changes of centuries, but the list of different characters, which in
a dictionary of the second century numbered 9353, and in the latest
imperial Chinese Dictionary numbers 43,960,—some of them requiring
fifty strokes of the pencil to produce them,—shows how unfit such a
language must be for a channel to convey the glad tidings of God's
salvation to the poor, the weak, the sorrowful, and to people who cannot
spend ten or twenty years in learning to comprehend the mysteries of the
Chinese tongue.

Who can imagine what would have been the fate of a divine revelation if
the words of eternal life had been enswathed in such cerements as these?

In the wisdom of God, the revelation of his will was given in the Hebrew
tongue, with an alphabet of twenty-two letters, some of which, as
inscribed on the Moabite stone, b.c. 900, are identical in form and
sound with those now used in English books.

This Hebrew alphabet, so simple that a child might learn it in a day,
has never been lost or forgotten. The Hebrew language in which the
Oracles of God were given to man, has never become a dead language.
Since the day when the Law was given to Moses on Mount Sinai, there
never has been a day or hour when the language in which it was written
was not known to living men, who were able to read, write, and expound
it. And the Hebrew is the only language of those ages that has lived to
the present time, preserving the record of a divine revelation, and
being conserved by it through the vicissitudes of conflict, conquest,
captivity, and dispersion; while the surrounding idolatrous nations
perished in their own corruption, and their languages and literature
were buried in oblivion.

In later ages, when the gospel of the Son of God was to be proclaimed to
all mankind, another language was used as a vehicle for its
communication. The bulk of the Israelitish race, through their
captivities and eternal associations, had lost the knowledge of the holy
tongue, and had learned the languages of the Gentiles among whom they
dwelt; and now as their corporate national existence was to be
interrupted, and they were to be dispersed among the peoples of the
earth, the Hebrew language was not a fit channel for conveying this
revelation to the Gentile world. Hence the same wise Providence which
chose the undying Hebrew tongue for the utterances of the prophets,
selected the Greek, which was at that time, more nearly than any other,
a universal language, as the medium through which the teachings of the
Saviour and the messages of the apostles should be sent forth to
mankind.

This language, like the Hebrew, has maintained its existence,—though
it has been somewhat changed by the flight of years,—and the modern
Greek spoken in Athens to-day is substantially the Greek of 1800 years
ago.

The gospel of Christ was to go forth to every nation; and the miracle of
Pentecost indicated that it was the Divine purpose that each nation
should hear in their own tongue wherein they were born, the wonderful
works of God. Hence the Scriptures have been translated into hundreds of
languages, and to-day six hundred millions of people, comprising all the
leading races and nations of the earth, may have access to the Word of
God in their native tongues. Nevertheless, no translation can perfectly
express the delicate shades of thought which are uttered in another
language, and it often becomes necessary and desirable to recur to the
original Scriptures, and by searching them to find out the precise
meaning of those words which were given by the Holy Ghost, and which are
"more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold." For while,
speaking in a general way, we have faithful translations, which give us
with great accuracy the sense of the Scriptures as a whole, yet there
are times when we desire fuller and more accurate information concerning
particular words uttered by those men to whom the Holy Ghost was given
to bring all things to their remembrance, to guide them into all truth,
and to show them things to come. Frequently there are depths of meaning
which the casual reader does not fathom, and the study of the Greek and
Hebrew becomes as needful as it is agreeable to those who love God's
law, who delight in his gospel, and who have time and opportunity to
prosecute such studies.

There are few lovers of the Bible who do not at times wish that they
might clearly know the precise sense of some one original word which may
sometimes be obscurely translated; or who would not be delighted to
inquire of some competent scholar as to the meaning of certain
expressions contained in that Book of God. Such persons are glad to
study the original Scriptures, that they may learn, as far as possible,
exactly what God has said to man.

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