StrongerBible

daimonion

δαιμόνιον

GreekG1140“demon, evil spirit, ...”

Appears 63 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 7:22Mat 9:33Mat 9:34 (2×)Mat 10:8Mat 11:18Mat 12:24 (2×)Mat 12:27Mat 12:28Mat 17:18Mrk 1:34 (2×)Mrk 1:39Mrk 3:15Mrk 3:22 (2×)Mrk 6:13Mrk 7:26Mrk 7:29Mrk 7:30Luk 4:33Luk 4:35Luk 4:41Luk 7:33Luk 8:2Luk 8:29Luk 8:30Luk 8:33Luk 8:35Luk 8:38Luk 9:42Luk 10:17Luk 11:14 (2×)Luk 11:15Jhn 7:20Jhn 8:48Jhn 8:49Jhn 8:52Jhn 10:20Jhn 10:21Act 17:181Co 10:20 (2×)1Co 10:21 (2×)1Ti 4:1Jas 2:19Rev 16:14Rev 18:2
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyResearch-gradedai-MOH-nee-onnoun

What daimonion means

1

an evil spirit: a real, personal, malevolent being that works under Satan and is driven out by Jesus

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is the meaning the word carries almost everywhere in the New Testament. A demon is not a vague force or a figure of speech but a personal being that opposes God, harms people, and answers to a chief named Satan or Beelzebul. In the Gospels the word is used interchangeably with "unclean spirit" and "evil spirit," so the same being can be called all three within a single story.

The one core runs through every shade below. A demon can seize and torment a person, and Jesus casts it out; it can be the real power that people unknowingly bind themselves to when they worship idols; it can be hurled as an insult at someone thought to be mad or in league with evil; it can be a being that knows perfectly well who God is and trembles; and it can be the hidden source behind teaching that leads people astray. In each case the demon is treated as actual, organized, and hostile.

The New Testament is reserved about where demons came from. It is sure they are real, personal, malevolent, and already defeated by Christ, but it never spells out an origin (fallen angels, the spirits of dead giants, demoted foreign gods). That silence is deliberate, and readers should resist filling it in with a single tidy explanation that the text itself does not give.

Nuances

1aa spirit that possesses and torments a person, which Jesus and his followers drive out
Mat 7:22Mat 9:33Mat 9:34 (2×)Mat 10:8Mat 11:18Mat 12:24 (2×)Mat 12:27Mat 12:28Mat 17:18Mrk 1:34 (2×)Mrk 1:39Mrk 3:15
1bthe real spiritual power that stands behind idol worship, so that to sacrifice to an idol is to share a table with demons
1Co 10:20 (2×)1Co 10:21 (2×)Rev 9:20Rev 18:2
1cused in the accusation "you have a demon," a charge that someone is mad or speaking under an evil influence
Jhn 7:20Jhn 8:48Jhn 8:49Jhn 8:52Jhn 10:20Jhn 10:21
1da supernatural being that knows the truth about God and shudders, yet is not saved by that knowledge
Jas 2:19
1ethe hidden source of false teaching that leads people away from the faith
1Ti 4:1
1fan unclean spirit that performs deceiving signs to gather the powers of the world for battle
Rev 16:14

Disputed

What the New Testament writers thought demons fundamentally are, since the text never states an origin for them.

  • contestedThe New Testament gives no settled doctrine on the question; the later Christian package that fuses fallen angels, demoted pagan gods, and the spirits of dead giants into one category is a second and third century development read back into the text.; Dale Martin, "When Did Angels Become Demons?" JBL 129 (2010); Annette Yoshiko Reed, "When did Daimones become Demons?" HTR 116 (2023)
  • contestedDemons are demoted gods of the nations, the dominant Jewish framework still operating in the New Testament, especially where Paul cites the Song of Moses.; Emma Wasserman, Apocalypse as Holy War (Yale, 2018); Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans' Apostle (Yale, 2017)
  • contestedDemons are the disembodied spirits of the dead giants of Genesis 6, the dominant Second Temple explanation of evil-spirit affliction.; Loren Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels (Mohr Siebeck, 2014); Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits (Mohr Siebeck, 2005)
  • contestedThe traditional Christian view, that demons are fallen angels under Satan, is already implicit in the New Testament.; Clinton Arnold, Powers of Darkness (IVP, 1992); Sydney Page, Powers of Evil (Baker, 1995)
2

a lesser divine being, a deity or god of the kind the Greeks recognized

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

Outside the Bible this was the ordinary Greek sense of the word: not an evil spirit but simply a divine being of some rank below the high gods, a category that could be neutral or even good. The New Testament keeps this sense alive in only one place, on the lips of Greek philosophers in Athens.

When the Athenians hear Paul preach Jesus and the resurrection, they call him a herald of strange new deities, the same charge once leveled at Socrates. Here the word carries no hint of evil; it is the educated Greek term for foreign gods. Luke preserves the foreign vocabulary on foreign lips on purpose, showing he and his readers knew the wider Greek range of the word and could use it deliberately.

Act 17:18

What scholars say about daimonion

Recent scholarship treats the word as more discontinuous than the older lexicons allowed. In ordinary Greek the term named an undefined or even good lesser divine being (Burkert; Dillon on Xenocrates; Brenk). The Greek Old Testament used it for several Hebrew words whose common feature was that they named the gods of other nations, demoting but not yet fully demonizing them (Martin; Reed; Angelini). The Second Temple Enochic tradition produced a separate demonology, mostly under the word "spirits," of the disembodied dead giants (Stuckenbruck; Wright; Nickelsburg), systematized at Qumran (Alexander). The New Testament Gospels fuse demon with "unclean spirit" and "evil spirit" and place them all under Satan, but stop short of any explicit origin story (Twelftree; Sorensen; Marcus). Paul deploys the word with the Old Testament "gods of the nations" sense intact at 1 Corinthians 10 (Thiselton; Fee; Hays; Wasserman; Fredriksen). The familiar synthesis of fallen angel, pagan god, and ghost is a second and third century apologetic construction (Martin; Reed; Bauckham). The standard lexicons split the word into a neutral sense of a transcendent being between humans and gods (Acts 17:18) and the dominant hostile sense of evil spirit.

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, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. δαιμόνιον, 210lexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon, §12.37 and §12.28lexicon
  • Werner Foerster, "δαίμων, δαιμόνιον," TDNT 2:1-21dictionary
  • EDNT (Balz-Schneider), 1:271-74, s.v. δαιμόνιονdictionary
  • NIDNTTE (Silva ed., 2014), 1:660-67, s.v. δαιμόνιονdictionary
  • Dale Martin, "When Did Angels Become Demons?" JBL 129 (2010): 657-77article
  • Annette Yoshiko Reed, "When did Daimones become Demons?" HTR 116 (2023): 340-375article
  • Graham Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist (Mohr Siebeck, 1993)monograph
  • Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the NT and Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 2002)monograph
  • Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8 (Anchor Yale Bible, 2000), 187-94commentary
  • Anthony Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NIGTC, Eerdmans, 2000), 770-78commentary
  • Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT, Eerdmans, 1987/2014), 470-73commentary
  • Richard Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation, WJK, 1997), 168-70commentary
  • Emma Wasserman, Apocalypse as Holy War (Yale, 2018)monograph
  • Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans' Apostle (Yale, 2017)monograph
  • Loren Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels (Mohr Siebeck, 2014)monograph
  • Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits (Mohr Siebeck, 2005)monograph
  • Dale Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of James (ICC, Bloomsbury, 2013), 477-84commentary
  • Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (Anchor Bible), 1:312-13commentary
  • C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John, 2nd ed. (1978), 320, 348-50commentary

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

All attested forms of δαιμόνιον

accusative n p

δαιμόνια

Mat 7:22, Mat 9:34, Mat 10:8, Mat 12:24, Mat 12:27, Mat 12:28, Mrk 1:34, Mrk 1:34

genitive n p

δαιμονίων

Mat 9:34, Mat 12:24, Mrk 3:22, Luk 11:15, Act 17:18, 1Co 10:20, 1Co 10:21, 1Co 10:21

accusative n s

δαιμόνιον

Mat 11:18, Mrk 7:26, Mrk 7:30, Luk 7:33, Luk 11:14, Jhn 7:20, Jhn 8:48, Jhn 8:49

nominative n p

δαιμόνια

Luk 4:41, Luk 8:2, Luk 8:30, Luk 8:33, Luk 8:35, Luk 8:38, Luk 10:17, Jas 2:19

nominative n s

δαιμόνιον

Mat 17:18, Mrk 7:29, Luk 4:35, Luk 9:42, Jhn 10:21

genitive n s

δαιμονίου

Mat 9:33, Luk 4:33, Luk 8:29, Luk 11:14

dative n p

δαιμονίοις

1Co 10:20