StrongerBible

etos

ἔτος

GreekG2094year

Appears 49 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 9:20Mrk 5:25Mrk 5:42Luk 2:36Luk 2:37Luk 2:41Luk 2:42Luk 3:1Luk 3:23Luk 4:25Luk 8:42Luk 8:43Luk 12:19Luk 13:7Luk 13:8Luk 13:11Luk 13:16Luk 15:29Jhn 2:20Jhn 5:5Jhn 8:57Act 4:22Act 7:6Act 7:30Act 9:33Act 13:20Act 24:10Act 24:17Rom 15:23Heb 1:122Pe 3:8 (2×)Rev 20:3Rev 20:5Rev 20:7
Names & words formed with this
Akin to
Word studyEH-tossnoun

What etos means

a year: one full cycle of twelve months as a unit for measuring time

TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled

This is the ordinary word for a year, a single turn of the calendar used to count how long something lasts or how old someone is. The New Testament reaches for it in three everyday ways, and all three are the same idea of a year, just put to different work.

Most often it counts duration: how long a condition, a promise, or an era has run. A woman is sick for twelve years, Israel wanders forty years, the binding of Satan lasts a thousand years. It also counts age, almost always paired with a number to tell us how old a person is, as when Jesus is about thirty years old when he begins his ministry. Less often it fixes a date, marking the particular year in which an event happened, such as the fifteenth year of a Roman emperor's reign.

Because a year is a plain, agreed unit, the word carries no hidden freight. It simply names the span. The interest in any given verse comes from the number attached to it, not from the word itself.

Mat 9:20Mrk 5:25Mrk 5:42Luk 2:36Luk 2:37Luk 2:41Luk 2:42Luk 3:1Luk 3:23Luk 4:25Luk 8:42Luk 8:43

What scholars say about etos

The lexica are unanimous that etos denotes a year as a unit of time, with no semantic dispute; BDAG and LSJ catalog its uses for duration, age, and dating. The only matter of nuance is its relation to its near-synonym eniautos: classical usage could distinguish etos as the abstract twelve-month span from eniautos as a recurring or completed annual cycle, but that distinction had largely eroded by the Koine period, and TDNT (s.v. etos) and the standard lexica treat the two as effectively interchangeable in the New Testament.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. ἔτοςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. ἔτοςlexicon
  • TDNT, s.v. ἔτοςtheological-dictionary

All attested forms of ἔτος

accusative n p

ἔτη

Mat 9:20, Mrk 5:25, Luk 2:36, Luk 4:25, Luk 12:19, Luk 13:7, Luk 13:11, Luk 13:16

genitive n p

ἐτῶν

Mrk 5:42, Luk 2:37, Luk 2:42, Luk 3:23, Luk 8:42, Luk 8:43, Act 4:22, Act 7:30

nominative n p

ἔτη

Heb 1:12, 2Pe 3:8, 2Pe 3:8, Rev 20:3, Rev 20:5, Rev 20:7

accusative n s

ἔτος

Luk 2:41, Luk 13:8

dative n p

ἔτεσιν

Jhn 2:20, Act 13:20

dative n s

ἔτει

Luk 3:1