StrongerBible

peritrechō

περιτρέχω

GreekG4063“ran throughout, ran about, ...”

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

Mrk 6:55
Compound of
periπερίabout336G4012
trechōτρέχωto run20G5143
Word studyResearch-gradepeh-ree-TREH-khoverb

What peritrechō means

to run all over an area: to hurry back and forth across a whole region on foot

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

This word pictures people rushing on foot across a whole stretch of country, not once in a straight line but back and forth, covering the entire area. It combines the ordinary verb for running (τρέχω) with a prefix that means "around" or "all about," and the force here is spread rather than circle: the crowd fans out in every direction, not around a fixed point.

It appears only once in the New Testament, in Mark's account of Jesus landing at Gennesaret (Mark 6:55). The moment people recognize him, they run out across the whole district and start bringing their sick to him on mats wherever they hear he is. The verb captures the urgency and the scale of it: an entire population set in motion at once, hurrying everywhere to reach a healer.

Greek writers from Homer onward used this word for people running about here and there, and the Greek Old Testament used it for hurrying through a place in search of something (running through the streets of Jerusalem, running to and fro seeking the word of the Lord). That searching, ground-covering sense fits Mark's scene closely. Because the word barely turns up in everyday documents of the period, Mark seems to have chosen a slightly more literary term to paint the action vividly, which the parallel account in Matthew replaces with a plainer expression.

Mrk 6:55
Mrk 6:55

Whether the prefix peri- at Mark 6:55 conveys circular, encircling motion ("ran round about") or distributive, area-covering motion ("ran all over, rushed about").

  • majorityDistributive: the crowd disperses in every direction across the whole region to fetch the sick; peri- reinforces widespread, area-covering motion rather than a circle.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 2002), 273; Joel Marcus, Mark 1-8, AB 27 (Doubleday, 2000), 428-430; R. A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26, WBC 34A (Word, 1989), on 6:55
  • minorityCircular/encircling: peri- is read more literally as "round about," following the older lexical grouping (LSJ sense I.1/II).; Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. (Clarendon, 1996), s.v. sense I.1/II

What scholars say about peritrechō

BDAG glosses the verb "to move about rapidly on foot in an area, run around, run about (in)," citing Mark 6:55 as the sole NT occurrence alongside LXX Jer 5:1 and Amos 8:12. LSJ organizes the range as (I.1) "run round and round," (I.2) "run about everywhere," and (II, with accusative) "run round/all over" a place, the construction at Mark 6:55 (peri- compound governing an accusative of place traversed, holen ten choran ekeinen). Louw-Nida place it exclusively in the domain of linear movement ("run about in an area"), with no metaphorical cross-listing for the NT. The verb is a Markan hapax with a long classical pedigree (Homer, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon, Plutarch) but no substantive documentary-papyrus attestation (Moulton-Milligan, Preisigke), and it is absent from Josephus and Philo, which suggests a slightly literary choice. Herodotus 8.128 (a crowd converging around a wounded man, same aorist peri-edramen) is the closest classical analogue. The LXX uses it twice (Amos 8:12; Jer 5:1) to render Hebrew shut "rove," already establishing it as the verb for people hurrying over a whole area in urgent search. Most modern Markan commentators (France, Marcus, Collins, Guelich, Boring, Hooker) read peri- distributively here rather than as a geometric circle; the aorist peri-edramon is generally taken as complexive/summary (Cranfield, Taylor), though Gundry reads it ingressively. TDNT and Spicq give it no substantive treatment precisely because the usage is a plain physical one without theological freight.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT, 3rd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. περιτρέχω, 807lexicon
  • Liddell-Scott-Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with rev. Supplement (Clarendon, 1996), s.v. περιτρέχωlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the NT Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (UBS, 1989), Domain 15lexicon
  • C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St Mark, CGTC (CUP, 1959), on 6:55commentary
  • Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 2nd ed. (Macmillan, 1966), on 6:53-56commentary
  • Robert Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Eerdmans, 1993), on 6:53-56commentary

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

All attested forms of περιτρέχω

aorist active indicative 3p

περιέδραμον

Mrk 6:55