StrongerBible

lampas

λαμπάς

GreekG2985“torch, lamp, ...”

Appears 9 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 25:1Mat 25:3Mat 25:4Mat 25:7Mat 25:8Jhn 18:3Act 20:8Rev 4:5Rev 8:10
Root family
Word studylam-PAHSSnoun

What lampas means

a burning light carried or set out to shine: chiefly a torch of open flame, and sometimes an oil lamp

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

This word comes from the ordinary Greek verb for shining, and it names the object that does the shining with an open flame. In everyday Greek it usually meant a torch: a stick bound with rags, soaked in oil, and held up so people could see their way through the dark. That is plainly what it means when Judas brings the arresting party into the garden at night, since the account lists these alongside lanterns (φανός) and weapons.

By the first century the word had also stretched to cover smaller, steadier lights, so it can name an oil lamp as well. That stretch is what makes it slippery in English, because Greek already had a very precise word for the small clay household lamp (λύχνος) and another for the stand it sat on (λυχνία). When a translator writes "lamp" here, an English reader cannot tell which Greek word stood behind it.

The nine places it appears fall into a narrow range of scenes:

  • a light carried by an arrest party moving through a garden at night
  • the lights a wedding party takes out to meet the bridegroom
  • the many lights burning in an upstairs room where a church has gathered
  • flames of fire blazing before God's throne, and a star falling like a burning brand

The famous case is the parable of the ten young women waiting for the bridegroom. They carry lights out into the night, some with a reserve of oil and some without, and the lights of the unprepared ones are dying just as he arrives. Whether those lights are blazing brands that must be re-soaked every quarter of an hour or small clay dishes whose oil runs low changes how the scene looks, and scholars have argued the point for well over a century.

Nuances

1aa torch: a blazing brand of oil-fed flame held up to light the way through the dark
TranslatabilityApproximate
Mat 25:1Mat 25:3Mat 25:4Mat 25:7Mat 25:8Jhn 18:3Rev 4:5Rev 8:10
Mat 25:1

Whether the lights the ten young women carry out to meet the bridegroom are torches wrapped in oil-soaked rags or small household oil lamps.

  • contestedThey are torches carried in a night wedding procession. A rag-wound brand burns for only a short stretch before it must be soaked again, which explains why the wise women bring a separate supply of oil and why the unprepared ones are left with dying flames.; Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, rev. ET (New York: Scribner, 1963), on the parable of the ten virgins; BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. λαμπάς, which classes the Matthean occurrences under "torch"
  • contestedThey are small oil lamps of the ordinary household kind. The word had spread to cover lamps by this period, and the details of the scene suit them: oil kept in separate flasks as a reserve, lights put back in order rather than rebuilt, and a small reservoir that runs dry through a long night wait.; Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.), s.v. λαμπάς, which records the extension of the word to a lamp or any light
1ba lamp: an oil-fed light set out to brighten a room
TranslatabilityApproximate
Act 20:8

What scholars say about lampas

The lexica agree on the word's range while differing over its center of gravity. LSJ, s.v. λαμπάς, gives "torch" as the primary sense (the brand of the Athenian torch-race, the wedding torch, the military torch) and records the later extension to any light, including a lamp. BDAG, s.v. λαμπάς, classes John 18:3 and the Matthean parable under "torch" while allowing "lamp" for Acts 20:8 and the Apocalypse. Oepke's TDNT treatment of the λάμπω word-group draws the standard three-way distinction between λύχνος (the small wick-fed domestic lamp), λαμπάς (torch or festal light), and φῶς (light as such), a distinction Trench had already pressed polemically in his Synonyms of the New Testament, insisting that λαμπάς is properly a torch and not a lamp at all; NIDNTTE follows the same line. The live exegetical question is Matthew 25:1-8. Jeremias argued in The Parables of Jesus that the λαμπάδες are the rag-wound, oil-fed torches of a Palestinian night wedding, needing replenishment at short intervals, which accounts for the ἔλαιον carried ἐν τοῖς ἀγγείοις; against this stand the lexical evidence for λαμπάς as a small lamp in Hellenistic and Roman usage, the domestic scale of the scene, and the tending of the lights implied by ἐκόσμησαν (Matt 25:7). Commentators remain divided; Davies and Allison survey the options in the ICC volume on Matthew 19-28. In Revelation 4:5 the ἑπτὰ λαμπάδες πυρός are widely read as blazing torches of theophanic fire, though Beale connects them with the lampstand vision of Zechariah 4 and hence with the seven spirits, and John reserves λυχνία for the lampstand imagery of chapters 1 to 2. Revelation 8:10 uses the word in a simile of open flame, and Acts 20:8 is the clearest New Testament instance of the lamp sense.

Where scholars disagree about lampas

Whether the word in New Testament Greek keeps its older restriction to a torch or had already widened to include ordinary oil lamps.

  • majorityBy the New Testament period the word covered both a blazing torch and an oil lamp, and the setting of each passage decides which is meant.; BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. λαμπάς; Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.), s.v. λαμπάς
  • minorityThe word means a torch throughout the New Testament, and rendering it "lamp" blurs it with the distinct Greek word for the small household oil lamp.; R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, 8th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1876), § xlvi

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. λαμπάςlexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon (9th ed.), s.v. λαμπάςlexicon
  • Albrecht Oepke, "λάμπω, λαμπάς, λαμπρός," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967)theological dictionary
  • Moisés Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), s.v. λαμπάςtheological dictionary
  • R. C. Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, 8th ed. (London: Macmillan, 1876), § xlvimonograph
  • Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, rev. ET (New York: Scribner, 1963)monograph
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 3, Matthew 19-28 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), on Matthew 25:1-13commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), on Revelation 4:5commentary
  • David E. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (WBC 52A; Dallas: Word, 1997), on Revelation 4:5commentary

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

All attested forms of λαμπάς

accusative f p

λαμπάδας

Mat 25:1, Mat 25:3, Mat 25:7

nominative f p

λαμπάδες

Mat 25:8, Act 20:8, Rev 4:5

genitive f p

λαμπάδων

Mat 25:4, Jhn 18:3

nominative f s

λαμπὰς

Rev 8:10