StrongerBible

automatos

αὐτόματος

GreekG0844“by itself, of its own accord”

Appears 2 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 4:28Act 12:10
Compound of
autosαὐτόςit/s/he5870G846
matēnμάτηνin vain2G3155
Word studyResearch-gradeow-TOH-mah-tosadjective

What automatos means

of its own accord: coming about with no outside help and no human hand behind it

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

The Greek word automatos means roughly what it looks like: self-moved. It joins the word for "self" to an old root for eagerness or impulse, so it describes something that comes about on its own, with nothing outside pushing it along. English "automatic" and "automaton" descend straight from it, which is a helpful hint and a trap at once, since the Greek carries no suggestion of machinery.

The word appears only twice in the New Testament, and those two verses happen to be its two oldest and most familiar uses. In Mark 4:28 a farmer scatters seed, sleeps and rises night after night, and the ground bears fruit by itself while he has no idea how. In Acts 12:10 an angel walks Peter out of prison, and the iron gate into the city swings open with nobody at the latch.

In neither place does the word say the event had no cause. It says the event had no human cause, and that is the point the reader is meant to follow up. The farmer contributes nothing to the growing, and Peter and his escort touch nothing. Both writers leave the missing human hand in plain view so that the reader looks past it to God's.

Greek-speaking readers of the Old Testament already knew the word from the harvest laws. In a sabbath or jubilee year Israel was not to sow or reap, and whatever came up unplanted, the grain that springs from last year's seed (סָפִיחַ), was to be left standing (Leviticus 25:5, 11); the same unsown growth is promised to Hezekiah as a sign (Isaiah 37:30). That is the older language a first-century reader would have heard behind Mark's field that produces on its own.

Nuances

1aof ground or a crop: producing on its own, without being sown or worked
Mrk 4:28
Mrk 4:28

Whether Mark's "of its own accord" deliberately echoes the Greek Old Testament wording for the crop that comes up unsown in the sabbath and jubilee years (Leviticus 25:5, 11).

  • majorityThe verbal overlap is natural agricultural vocabulary rather than a pointed citation. The parable's accent falls on growth apart from human effort and understanding, and on the certainty of the coming harvest.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC), Eerdmans, 2002, on Mark 4:26-29; C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (CGTC), Cambridge, on Mark 4:26-29
  • minorityThe wording is a deliberate allusion to the sabbatical and jubilee harvest, giving the parable a jubilee resonance in which God supplies the increase while human hands rest.; J. J. Scholtz, on the sabbatical-year background of the parable of the growing seed
1bof a door or gate: opening with nobody touching it
Act 12:10

What scholars say about automatos

The lexica converge on a single sense. BDAG glosses αὐτόματος "of itself, by itself, without external aid"; LSJ traces the development from Homeric "self-moving" through "spontaneous, unprompted," noting the adverbial phrases ἀπὸ / ἐκ τοῦ αὐτομάτου (equivalent to Latin sponte) and the adverb αὐτομάτως; Louw-Nida files the term in the domain of events happening without an apparent external cause; Moulton-Milligan document it in the documentary papyri, confirming it as ordinary Koine rather than a specialized biblical term. The standard etymological tradition (Thayer) derives it from αὐτός plus the root of μέμαα / μάω, "to be eager, to strive," hence "self-moved, acting on one's own impulse." The Septuagint supplies the nearest background for Mark: αὐτόματος renders Hebrew סָפִיחַ, the self-sown aftergrowth of the sabbatical and jubilee years (Leviticus 25:5, 11), and recurs in the Hezekiah sign (4 Kingdoms 19:29 = Isaiah 37:30), Joshua 6:5, Job 24:24 and Wisdom 17:6; BDB and HALOT define סָפִיחַ as grain springing from the previous year's seed without resowing. On Mark 4:28 the mainstream reading treats αὐτομάτη as a functional divine passive, growth proceeding by God's power apart from human effort and understanding (France, NIGTC), while Cranfield locates the parable's accent on the certainty of harvest rather than on the mechanism of growth, and a minority (Scholtz) presses a deliberate sabbatical-year allusion; more cautious commentators read the shared vocabulary as natural agricultural language. On Acts 12:10 the adjective marks Peter's release as divinely caused. The strongest first-century Jewish parallel is Josephus's report that the heavy bronze east gate of the inner temple was seen to open of its own accord as a portent before the fall of Jerusalem (Jewish War 6.293, 295), where the same word group is used. Acts commentators additionally situate the automatic gate within the Hellenistic rescue-miracle motif of self-opening doors catalogued by Weinreich and applied to Acts by Haenchen, Conzelmann and Pervo (Hermeneia), with Euripides, Bacchae 434-450 and 576-641, and Artapanus on Moses, as the standard comparisons; Keener cautions against pressing the pagan parallels and stresses the Exodus and Passover coloring of the narrative. The classical counterweight is Aristotle's technical τὸ αὐτόματον, spontaneity or chance understood as undesigned causation, of which τύχη is the subset involving rational agents; New Testament usage inverts that force, denying human rather than purposive causation. Because the New Testament data is limited to two verses, conclusions lean on Septuagint and classical usage and on commentators' judgment.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. αὐτόματοςlexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. αὐτόματοςlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, domain 13lexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. αὐτόματοςlexicon
  • J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. αὐτόματοςlexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, s.v. αὐτόματοςlexicon
  • BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. סָפִיחַlexicon
  • HALOT, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, s.v. סָפִיחַlexicon
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC), Eerdmans, 2002commentary
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (CGTC), Cambridge University Presscommentary
  • Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 2, Baker Academic, on Acts 12:10commentary
  • Richard I. Pervo, Acts (Hermeneia), Fortress Press, 2009, on Acts 12:10commentary
  • Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, Blackwell, on Acts 12commentary
  • Otto Weinreich, Türöffnung im Wunder-, Prodigien- und Zauberglauben der Antike, des Judentums und Christentums, 1929monograph
  • Josephus, Jewish War 6.293, 295ancient source
  • Aristotle, Physics 2.4-6, on τὸ αὐτόματον and τύχηancient source

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of αὐτόματος

nominative f s

αὐτομάτη

Mrk 4:28, Act 12:10