Appendix 8

THERE are many different Hebrew and Greek Lexicons available, some of them being more comprehensive and complicated than others. This Appendix gives a brief review of some of the more popular ones and some examples, so you can see for yourself what they offer and whether or not you could make good use of them. And, as a point of comparison, Vine’s definitions are given first, bearing in mind that his Old Testament expository dictionary is quite a slim volume which only covers a few topics.

Hebrew Lexicons

There are two main lexicons, namely Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament and Brown, Driver Briggs’ Hebrew and English Lexicon. The earlier editions are not linked to Strong’s numbers, but there is an Index to the latter which was compiled by Bruce Einspahr, which makes it more manageable. But it’s preferable to make sure the version you buy is Strong’s linked or get one in electronic format.

Here are some Old Testament comparisons, based on the word “Belial”:

This selection will give you an idea of the accessibility of the material for readers without any Hebrew. Vine’s work (as supplemented by F F Bruce) is the most accessible, but you will see how it includes theological content (“Another view is that the primary meaning is the abode of the dead…”). It is also very limited in terms of coverage, dealing with about 200 words only and leaving out a lot of crucial ones. For example, there is no entry for “Atonement”, only for the “Day of Atonement”.

The Lexicons take you back to the source material, without theological comment, but they are a bit more difficult to handle. You can get Gesenius and Brown, Driver, Briggs (“BDB” as it is commonly referred to) linked to Strong’s or in electronic format, both are available from Libronix, but there the linkages do not work through Strong’s numbers but via the Hebrew words themselves. That is a little more difficult to manage but can be achieved with a bit of practice and one big advantage is that there are then explanations available for all the abbreviations (like “infr” and “concr”), if you need them.

BDB is the standard Hebrew-English lexicon, and the one that is most often quoted in the more recent reference works and commentaries.

Greek Lexicons

There is just as much choice available for the New Testament, probably more, for you can also get lexicons which specialise in the usage of Greek works as found in the papyri − documents that have survived from everyday correspondence going back to First Century times, the best-known of which is Moulton & Milligan’s Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament.

Confining this consideration to standard lexicons, here is an extract from Strong’s Enhanced Lexicon, as a point of comparison. This time we will look at the word “Beelzebub”.

There are other Greek Lexicons, like Parkhurst’s Greek and English Lexicon (1851), often cited by Robert Roberts, but now a bit out of date; or E. W. Bullinger’s Critical Lexicon and Concordance (1877). This is organised by listing English words translated from Greek and each entry shows the English word with Greek origins and definitions, as well as Scriptural references. And there is Liddell & Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon, which is said to be the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative dictionary of ancient Greek. That includes the early Greek of authors such as Homer and Hesiod, Classical Greek, and the Greek Old and New Testaments. Each entry lists not only the definition of a word, but also its irregular inflections, and quotations from a full range of authors and sources to demonstrate usage. L&S is available electronically, in both full and abridged versions.

If you think this extra information is going to be useful to you, and that you are going to be able to the Greek lexicon which is now most often cited in Bible commentaries is the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature by William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (usually abbreviated to AG). It is available from Logos Bible Software in the Libronix software package, and from other Bible software suppliers, and is now available in a third enhanced edition (known by the abbreviation BDAG)

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