StrongerBible

agelē

ἀγέλη

GreekG0034herd

Appears 8 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 8:30Mat 8:31Mat 8:32 (2×)Mrk 5:11Mrk 5:13Luk 8:32Luk 8:33
Word studyah-GEH-laynoun

What agelē means

a herd: a sizeable body of grazing animals kept together and driven about as one group

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the plain Greek word for a herd. It is built on the ordinary verb meaning to lead or drive, so the picture behind it is a body of animals that is moved along together rather than a scattering of beasts that wander on their own. Greek writers used it of cattle, of horses, of goats, and of any livestock held as a single group.

In the New Testament it turns up in one episode only, told three times. Jesus crosses the lake into Gentile country and meets a man (two men, in Matthew's telling) tormented by unclean spirits, and the spirits beg to be sent into a herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby. Every occurrence of the word sits inside those few verses: four in Matthew, two in Mark, two in Luke. Mark alone puts a number on the animals, about two thousand.

Two things follow from that. The word names the group, not the animals in it: the pigs are a separate word (χοῖρος), and every verse has to say so. And the group acts as one body, which is exactly what the story needs it to do, since all three writers say that the whole herd rushed down the slope and drowned.

It is worth keeping this word apart from the Greek word for a shepherded flock (ποίμνη). That one carries the sheep and shepherd imagery the Gospels use for the people Jesus gathers. A herd in this sense is livestock held together and driven, and the New Testament never uses it of people.

Mat 8:30Mat 8:31Mat 8:32 (2×)Mrk 5:11Mrk 5:13Luk 8:32Luk 8:33

What scholars say about agelē

BDAG and LSJ agree on a single sense, "herd," the noun being formed from ἄγω and denoting a body of animals driven together. LSJ documents the classical range: herds of cattle, horses and goats, and, in Doric usage (notably Cretan and Spartan), the organized bands of youths called ἀγέλαι. In the Septuagint the noun appears for grouped livestock, rendering עֵדֶר and, where cattle are in view, בָּקָר, though ποίμνη and ποίμνιον are the commoner equivalents for a shepherded flock. All eight New Testament occurrences fall inside the single Gerasene exorcism pericope (Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39), where the animals are χοῖροι; Mark alone quantifies the herd, ὡς δισχίλιοι (Mark 5:13). Matthew uses the noun four times against two each in Mark and Luke, including the doubled occurrence at Matthew 8:32 (εἰς τὴν ἀγέλην ... πᾶσα ἡ ἀγέλη), a verse whose phrasing around εἰς τοὺς χοίρους is itself unsettled in the manuscript tradition. Marcus, France and Bock treat the presence of a large swine herd as a marker of predominantly Gentile territory in the Decapolis rather than as evidence about the noun, and the familiar text-critical variation among Γερασηνῶν, Γαδαρηνῶν and Γεργεσηνῶν concerns the placename, not the word. Davies and Allison note Matthew's characteristic compression of the narrative, which concentrates the noun without altering its sense. No lexical dispute attaches to it.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. ἀγέληlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. ἀγέληlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. ἀγέληlexicon
  • J. Marcus, Mark 1-8, Anchor Yale Biblecommentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTCcommentary
  • D. L. Bock, Luke, BECNTcommentary
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICCcommentary

All attested forms of ἀγέλη

nominative f s

ἀγέλη

Mat 8:30, Mat 8:32, Mrk 5:11, Mrk 5:13, Luk 8:32, Luk 8:33

accusative f s

ἀγέλην

Mat 8:31, Mat 8:32