StrongerBible

duo

δύο

GreekG1417two

Appears 137 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 4:18Mat 4:21Mat 5:41Mat 6:24Mat 8:28Mat 9:27Mat 10:10Mat 10:29Mat 14:17Mat 14:19Mat 18:8 (2×)Mat 18:9Mat 22:40Mrk 16:12Luk 12:52Luk 16:13Act 12:6Act 21:33Heb 10:28Rev 11:3
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyDOO-ohadjective

What duo means

two: the cardinal number two, the count of a pair.

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is simply the number two, the word the New Testament uses whenever it counts a pair of anything: two brothers casting a net, two fish, two blind men, two coins, two thieves crucified beside Jesus. Across all of its occurrences it keeps this one plain sense. There is no hidden second meaning to hunt for, the way some small words carry a surprising range.

What does vary is the kind of phrase the number falls into, and a few of these phrases became fixed expressions worth knowing. One is distributive: pairing the word with itself ("two and two") to mean "two at a time," as when Jesus sends out the disciples two by two. Another is legal: "two or three witnesses," the standing rule from the law of Moses that no charge stands on a single voice, which the New Testament reuses for confronting wrongdoing and for weighing testimony.

None of these uses changes what the word means. In every case it is still the bare number two; only the sentence around it is doing the extra work. So a reader can take it at face value almost everywhere, while staying alert to the handful of set phrases that carry a particular force.

Mat 4:18Mat 4:21Mat 5:41Mat 6:24Mat 8:28Mat 9:27Mat 10:10Mat 10:29Mat 14:17Mat 14:19Mat 18:8 (2×)Mat 18:9

What scholars say about duo

The standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ) treat δύο as the indeclinable cardinal numeral "two," with the only special notes being its few fixed constructions: the distributive δύο δύο, "two by two," in Mark 6:7 (a Semitizing reduplication that BDF §248 and BDAG flag as Septuagintal rather than classical), and the legal formula "on the evidence of two or three witnesses" drawn from Deuteronomy 17:6 and 19:15 (Matthew 18:16; 2 Corinthians 13:1; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28). The dative δυσί(ν) supplies the otherwise-defective oblique forms. There is no semantic dispute and no homonymy: scholarship is unanimous that this is one monosemous numeral, and the interest lies entirely in the idioms and intertexts the number enters, not in its meaning.

Sources

  • BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich), s.v. δύοlexicon
  • LSJ (Liddell-Scott-Jones), s.v. δύοlexicon
  • F. Blass, A. Debrunner, and R. W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament (BDF), §§247-248reference

All attested forms of δύο

adj

δύο

Mat 4:18, Mat 4:21, Mat 5:41, Mat 8:28, Mat 9:27, Mat 10:10, Mat 10:29, Mat 14:17

dative m p

δυσὶν, δυσὶ

Mrk 16:12, Luk 12:52, Luk 16:13, Heb 10:28, Rev 11:3, Mat 6:24

dative f p

δυσὶν, δυσίν

Mat 22:40, Act 21:33, Act 12:6