StrongerBible

notos

νότος

GreekG3558south, south wind, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 12:42Luk 11:31Luk 12:55Luk 13:29Act 27:13Act 28:13Rev 21:13
Word studyNOH-tosnoun

What notos means

south: the wind that blows up from the south, and the direction or region it blows from

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the Greek word for the south, and it does two jobs at once. It names the wind that blows up from the south, and it names the quarter of the horizon that wind comes from. Greek speakers labeled the winds by where they came from, so one word covered both the breeze and the bearing, and the setting tells a reader which is meant.

The wind turns up in weather talk and at sea. Jesus tells a crowd that when they see the south wind blowing they say scorching heat is coming, because in that part of the world it comes up off the desert. Twice in the account of Paul's voyage a gentle wind out of the south is what decides the sailors: in Acts 27:13 it tempts them out of a safe harbor, and in Acts 28:13 it carries them up the Italian coast. A narrower word, λίψ, names the wind from the southwest, and the general word for any wind at all is ἄνεμος.

The other verses use it as a plain bearing. Three of the twelve gates of the new Jerusalem face south. People are gathered in from north and south to sit down in God's kingdom. And in the phrase "the queen of the South" the word has stretched from a bearing to the lands that lie that way, the far country the queen traveled from. Greek had a second way of pointing that direction, μεσημβρία, which properly means midday and reaches "south" by way of where the sun stands at noon.

Hebrew spread the same ground across several words: תֵּימָן, which like this Greek word can mean either the south or the south wind, the poetic דָּרוֹם, and נֶגֶב, the parched southern land whose name became a direction.

Nuances

1athe south wind: the warm wind blowing up from the south, watched for the heat it brought and for what it meant at sea
Luk 12:55Act 27:13Act 28:13
1bthe south as a compass point: one of the four quarters, the side opposite north
TranslatabilityDirect
Luk 13:29Rev 21:13
1cthe South as a region: the lands lying to the south, standing for the people who live there
Mat 12:42Luk 11:31

What scholars say about notos

The critical lexica treat νότος as a single lexeme with two related senses: (1) the south wind, and (2) the south as a point of the compass or as the region lying in that quarter, the second arising by metonymy from the first, since Greek named the quarters of the horizon after the winds that blew from them (BDAG; LSJ, which documents the same range from Homer onward, where Notos is the personified south wind of the Anemoi). Louw and Nida accordingly place the two uses in separate semantic domains, one under natural forces and one under spatial orientation. Of the seven New Testament occurrences, three are the wind (Luke 12:55; Acts 27:13; 28:13) and four the direction or region (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31; 13:29; Revelation 21:13). In the Septuagint νότος renders תֵּימָן, דָּרוֹם, and נֶגֶב, and the Lukan and Matthean phrase βασίλισσα νότου reflects the regional use, the ruler of Sheba of 1 Kings 10 relocated to a compass idiom. Commentators on Acts note the nautical precision of the Lukan usage: the gentle νότος of Acts 27:13 is what makes the run to Phoenix look feasible, and its shift to the northeaster of 27:14 is a recognized Mediterranean weather pattern (Barrett; and, classically, Smith's study of the voyage). Fitzmyer treats the Lukan weather sayings as drawing on ordinary Palestinian meteorological lore rather than a literary topos.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. νότοςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. νότοςlexicon
  • Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. νότοςlexicon
  • C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles (ICC), vol. 2, on Acts 27:13commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X to XXIV (Anchor Bible 28A), on Luke 12:54 to 56commentary
  • James Smith, The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paulmonograph

All attested forms of νότος

genitive m s

νότου

Mat 12:42, Luk 11:31, Luk 13:29, Act 27:13, Act 28:13, Rev 21:13

accusative m s

νότον

Luk 12:55