StrongerBible

diaskorpizō

διασκορπίζω

GreekG1287“scatter, squander, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 25:24Mat 25:26Mat 26:31Mrk 14:27Luk 1:51Luk 15:13Luk 16:1Jhn 11:52Act 5:37
Compound of
diaδιάthrough/because of687G1223
skorpizōσκορπίζωto scatter5G4650
Word studydee-ah-skor-PID-zohverb

What diaskorpizō means

1

to scatter completely: to break up something gathered so that its parts are driven off in every direction

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

Something held together gets hit, and the parts fly apart. That is the whole picture behind this word. It is built on the ordinary verb for scattering (σκορπίζω) with a prefix that presses the action to its finish, so it is not a few strays wandering off but the whole gathering broken up and gone. This is why the word so naturally stands as the opposite of gathering, and why writers set the two side by side in one sentence.

The New Testament turns it on four sorts of things:

  • a flock broken up when its shepherd is struck down
  • a movement dissolved when the leader who drew it together is killed
  • the proud, whose confidence God breaks and drives apart
  • grain strewn out across a threshing floor

Behind the human uses stands the main Hebrew word for scattering a people (פּוּץ), which the prophets use when God breaks a nation up and sends it away. The Gospels carry that weight over: scattering here is loss, defeat, or judgment, never a harmless spreading out.

One use looks the other way. Because scattering is the thing that has to be undone, the word can name a settled condition rather than a single blow: God's children living scattered across the world are the ones to be brought back into one. Scattering, in other words, names both the act and the state it leaves behind.

Nuances

1ato break up a gathered group so that its members are driven off and it no longer holds together
Mat 26:31Mrk 14:27Act 5:37
1bto be living scattered abroad, spread out far from home among the nations
Jhn 11:52
1cto break the proud and drive them apart, as an act of God in defeating them
Luk 1:51
1dto strew grain about, as a step in bringing in a harvest
CertaintyStrong
Mat 25:24Mat 25:26
2

to squander: to throw money or property away until nothing is left of it

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the same verb turned on a fortune. A sum of money is a gathered thing, so scattering it means breaking it up and letting it go in every direction until there is none of it left. Greek used the word this way for running through an estate, and both Gospel uses concern a man who has to answer for property that is gone.

Luke puts the gathering and the scattering right next to each other. The younger son collects everything he owns, travels a long way off, and there scatters it. The manager in the next chapter is accused of doing the same with someone else's goods. Neither verse says the money bought anything worth having; the point is that it is gone and cannot be gathered back.

English has to switch words here, to "waste" or "squander", which hides the fact that this is the very verb used of a routed crowd and a broken up flock. The Greek keeps the picture in view: a fortune blown apart.

Luk 15:13Luk 16:1

What scholars say about diaskorpizō

The lexicons agree on the two poles of the word's use. BDAG divides the New Testament occurrences between causing a group to be dispersed (the flock of Zechariah 13:7 at Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27, the followers of Judas the Galilean at Acts 5:37, the dispersed children of God at John 11:52, the proud of Luke 1:51) and causing property to be dissipated (Luke 15:13; 16:1); LSJ records both the dispersal and the squandering sense in wider Greek usage, and EDNT follows the same division. The compound is far commoner in the Septuagint than in classical Greek, where it renders the Hebrew vocabulary of national dispersion, chiefly פוץ together with זרה and פזר, and the TDNT article on σκορπίζω and its compounds treats the New Testament occurrences as continuous with that prophetic language of judgment and restoration. The citation at Matthew 26:31 and Mark 14:27 stands closer to the Masoretic form of Zechariah 13:7, with its first-person "I will strike," than to the Septuagint imperative, a divergence discussed in the critical commentaries on both Gospels. At Matthew 25:24 and 25:26 the pairing of the verb with reaping and gathering in has been read either as winnowing at the threshing floor or as the scattering of seed at sowing; the critical commentaries on Matthew canvass both, and the choice bears on the agricultural picture rather than on the lexical sense. For Luke, Marshall and the standard treatments of the parables note that both squandering texts set the scattering of property against a prior gathering, which is the metaphorical bridge between the word's two senses.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. διασκορπίζωlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. διασκορπίζωlexicon
  • TDNT, s.v. σκορπίζω (and compounds)dictionary
  • EDNT, s.v. διασκορπίζωdictionary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC)commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC)commentary
  • Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesusmonograph

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

All attested forms of διασκορπίζω

aorist active indicative 3s

διεσκόρπισεν

Luk 1:51, Luk 15:13

future passive indicative 3p

διασκορπισθήσονται

Mat 26:31, Mrk 14:27

aorist active indicative 1s

διεσκόρπισα

Mat 25:26

aorist active indicative 2s

διεσκόρπισας

Mat 25:24

aorist passive indicative 3p

διεσκορπίσθησαν

Act 5:37

perfect passive participle accusative n p

διεσκορπισμένα

Jhn 11:52

present active participle nominative m s

διασκορπίζων

Luk 16:1