eukopōteros

The word is the comparative of eukopos (eu + kopos, "with little toil"), an adjective attested from the Hellenistic period and common in the Septuagint (e.g. 1 Macc 3:18); BDAG and LSJ agree on the sense "easy, without trouble," and no lexical tradition divides it. In the New Testament only the comparative neuter singular occurs, and always in the impersonal construction eukopoteron estin followed by an infinitive and the comparative particle e. Hauck (TDNT 3:827-830) treats the kopos family as a whole and notes that the adjective preserves the root's association with strenuous exertion rather than with simplicity. Commentators divide the seven occurrences by rhetorical function rather than by lexical sense: the interrogative form of the healing-of-the-paralytic pericope (Matt 9:5; Mark 2:9; Luke 5:23), where the comparison exposes the unverifiability of a pronouncement of forgiveness (Marcus, Mark 1-8, ad loc.; Davies-Allison, Matthew, ad loc.), and the declarative a fortiori form (Matt 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25; Luke 16:17), a rabbinic-style hyperbole in which the term on the easier side is patently impossible. Attempts to soften the camel logion, whether by positing a Jerusalem gate called the Needle's Eye (unattested before the medieval period) or by adopting the itacistic variant kamilos, "rope," are rejected across the critical commentary tradition precisely because the comparative demands an impossibility on its lighter side.