StrongerBible

gazophulakion

γαζοφυλάκιον

GreekG1049“treasury, offering box, ...”

Appears 5 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 12:41 (2×)Mrk 12:43Luk 21:1Jhn 8:20
Compound of
gazaγάζαtreasury1G1047
phulakēφυλακήprison/watch: prison48G5438
Word studyResearch-gradegad-zo-foo-LAH-kee-onnoun

What gazophulakion means

the temple treasury: the guarded place where sacred money was handed in and kept, whether the collection chests themselves or the court and rooms around them

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyContested

The name is a compound of two pieces: treasure (γάζα), a word Greek borrowed from Persian for royal wealth, joined to the ordinary Greek verb for guarding. Put together it means a treasure guardhouse, a place where valuables are kept under watch. In the Greek Old Testament and in the Jewish historian Josephus it nearly always names a room, a storeroom or side chamber in the temple complex. One such chamber in Nehemiah's day was roomy enough for an official to move his furniture in and live there until Nehemiah threw it all out.

In the New Testament the word turns up in only two temple scenes, and there it is used more loosely. Three different spatial relationships sit inside those four verses:

  • Jesus sits down facing it and watches the crowd file past (Mark 12:41).
  • People throw their coins into it (Mark 12:41, Mark 12:43, Luke 21:1).
  • Jesus stands and teaches in it, in earshot of a crowd (John 8:20).

You cannot sit opposite a room you are standing inside, and you cannot teach inside a coin chest. So most scholars let each scene decide. In Mark and Luke the word points to the collection chests, or to the stretch of floor right in front of them, in the court that women as well as men could enter, which is how a poor widow could walk up unremarked. In John it points to that court itself, or to a chamber beside it, with the little word "in" meaning something closer to "at" or "near".

These are two angles on one thing rather than two different words. The temple's money had a guarded home, and this term named the whole arrangement: the chests, the court they stood in, and the strongrooms behind. English Bibles keep a single word, "treasury", across all four verses, so the slide from a container to a space passes without notice.

Nuances

1athe collection chests, and the floor space right in front of them, where worshipers handed in their gifts
Mrk 12:41 (2×)Mrk 12:43Luk 21:1
1bthe treasury area of the temple, a public space open enough to stand and teach in
Jhn 8:20

What scholars say about gazophulakion

The lexica agree on the word's range and divide over which part of it governs the Gospels. BDAG lists both a "treasure room" and a "contribution box", and notes that John 8:20 can be taken as "in (or at) the treasury"; Louw and Nida file the word under two semantic domains, Constructions and Artifacts; Muraoka's Septuagint lexicon glosses it simply "treasury, treasure-chamber". Moulton and Milligan supply the documentary control from outside the Bible, OGIS 225.16 (third century BCE), where a sum is paid into "the military treasury", showing the term had ordinary Hellenistic administrative currency and was not a Septuagintal coinage. In the Septuagint it renders chiefly לִשְׁכָּה and נִשְׁכָּה, "chamber", and once גְּנָזִים at Esther 3:9, and Josephus uses it of the treasure-chambers lining the temple courts (Jewish War 5.200). For the Gospels the mainstream reading is contextual. France (NIGTC) holds that reference to the collecting chests in the Court of the Women is demanded by a crowd, including a woman, throwing donations in, and that John 8:20 requires the same public setting rather than a strong room. Yarbro Collins (Hermeneia) reaches the same verdict for Mark 12:41 and Luke 21:1, judging it out of the question that the scene took place in the inner court, and flags John 8:20 as anomalous, pointing to Brown, who rendered the phrase at John 8:20 "at the temple treasury", reading the preposition loosely as "at" or "near"; A. T. Robertson had made the same observation earlier. The thirteen shofar-shaped chests come from Mishnah Shekalim 6:5, compiled around 200 CE, which France, Yarbro Collins and others use as plausible but late background rather than as the ground of the exegesis, since direct archaeological confirmation is impossible. The lexical question also feeds the interpretation of Mark 12:41 to 44: since Wright (CBQ 1982) argued the episode is lament rather than praise, and Lau (ZNW 2016) reconceived the treasury as a deposit facility on the strength of the private deposits described at 2 Maccabees 3:10, the sense of the noun has become part of the exegetical dispute, with Malbon (CBQ 1991), Kubiś (Biblical Annals 2013) and Otten (Tyndale Bulletin 2023) defending positive or synthetic readings of the widow.

Where scholars disagree about gazophulakion

Whether γαζοφυλάκιον in the Gospel scenes names the collection receptacles or the temple treasure-chamber.

  • majorityContext fixes the sense verse by verse: in Mark 12:41, 12:43 and Luke 21:1 it names the collection chests or the area immediately around them, while in John 8:20 it names the treasury chamber or its vicinity, with the preposition read as "at" or "near".; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (NIGTC, 2002), on Mark 12:41; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark (Hermeneia, 2007), on Mark 12:41; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii) (Anchor Bible 29, 1966), 342; BDAG, 3rd ed., 186, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιον
  • minorityThe architectural sense that dominates the Septuagint and Josephus holds in the Gospels too: the treasury is a place of safekeeping, a bank-like deposit facility, so the widow entrusts her money to the temple rather than donating it.; Markus Lau, Die Witwe, das Gazophylakion und der Tempel, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 107 (2016): 186-205
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, 3rd ed., 186, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • Liddell, Scott, Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • Moulton and Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιον (citing OGIS 225.16)lexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Peeters, 2009), s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • Lust, Eynikel, Hauspie, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. γαζοφυλάκιονlexicon
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (New International Greek Testament Commentary, Eerdmans, 2002), on Mark 12:41commentary
  • Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark (Hermeneia, Fortress, 2007), on Mark 12:41commentary
  • Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii) (Anchor Bible 29, Doubleday, 1966), 342commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (Anchor Bible 28A, Doubleday, 1985), on Luke 21:1-4commentary
  • Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Hendrickson, 2003), on John 8:20commentary
  • Addison G. Wright, The Widow's Mites: Praise or Lament? A Matter of Context, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 44 (1982): 256-265article
  • Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, The Poor Widow in Mark and Her Poor Rich Readers, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53 (1991): 589-604article
  • Markus Lau, Die Witwe, das Gazophylakion und der Tempel, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 107 (2016): 186-205article
  • Adam Kubiś, The Poor Widow's Mites: A Contextual Reading of Mark 12:41-44, Biblical Annals 3 (2013): 339-381article
  • Jeremy Otten, Copper Coins, Catchwords, and Contextual Cues, Tyndale Bulletin 74 (2023): 29-48article
  • M. A. Dandamayev and R. Schmitt, GANZABARA, in Encyclopaedia Iranicaencyclopedia
  • Mishnah Shekalim 6:5 (on the thirteen shofar-shaped chests)primary-source
  • Josephus, Jewish War 5.200 (treasure-chambers of the temple courts)primary-source

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

All attested forms of γαζοφυλάκιον

accusative n s

γαζοφυλάκιον

Mrk 12:41, Mrk 12:43, Luk 21:1

dative n s

γαζοφυλακίῳ

Jhn 8:20

genitive n s

γαζοφυλακίου

Mrk 12:41