StrongerBible

plousios

πλούσιος

GreekG4145rich, wealthy

Appears 28 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 19:23Mat 19:24Mat 27:57Mrk 10:25Mrk 12:41Luk 6:24Luk 12:16Luk 14:12Luk 16:1Luk 16:19Luk 16:21Luk 16:22Luk 18:23Luk 18:25Luk 19:2Luk 21:12Co 8:9Eph 2:41Ti 6:17Jas 1:10Jas 1:11Jas 2:5Jas 2:6Jas 5:1Rev 2:9Rev 3:17Rev 6:15Rev 13:16
Word studyResearch-gradePLOO-see-osadjective

What plousios means

rich: having far more than enough, whether in money and possessions or, by extension, in some good thing

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

At its core this is an ordinary word for being well off, the plain opposite of poor. It describes someone whose holdings go well beyond what most people around them have. In the first century that meant a thin upper layer of society, not a comfortable modern household, so when the New Testament calls a person rich it is usually pointing to the powerful few, not the many who lived near the edge of survival.

The word keeps that single basic idea of overflowing abundance even when the Bible turns it in very different directions. Most often it names people with material wealth, and in those settings it tends to carry a sharp, even ominous, edge picked up from the Hebrew prophets: the rich are the ones who hoard, oppress, and trust their own security instead of God. The same writers can also use it of wealthy people who follow God well, like Joseph of Arimathea, so the word itself is not a verdict; the surrounding context supplies the praise or the warning.

The second use stretches the same idea past money altogether. To be rich in mercy, rich in faith, or rich toward God is to overflow with that good thing the way a wealthy person overflows with possessions. This is why the New Testament can say woe to the rich in one place and call God rich in mercy in another: it is deliberately reserving real, lasting wealth for what cannot be hoarded, and exposing mere money as the lesser, riskier kind.

Nuances

1aa person who has abundant money and possessions; wealthy
Mat 19:23Mat 19:24Mat 27:57Mrk 10:25Mrk 12:41Luk 6:24Luk 12:16Luk 14:12Luk 16:1Luk 16:19Luk 16:21Luk 16:22
1babounding in something good past money: overflowing with a quality such as mercy or faith
2Co 8:9Eph 2:4Jas 2:5Rev 2:9

What scholars say about plousios

The standard lexicons agree on a clear core: BDAG defines the word as having an abundance of earthly possessions beyond normal experience, with a secondary figurative sense "abounding in something." Louw-Nida add that because the abundance exceeds a society's norm, the word often carries a negative connotation in actual use, and LSJ documents it from Hesiod on as the regular opposite of poor. Hauck and Kasch's article in Kittel traces the long arc by which a once-positive Greek word for the well-provisioned aristocrat became, through the Hebrew prophets and the Septuagint, a charged term classing the rich with the godless; the Greek Bible's habit of rendering the Hebrew poor and afflicted with the religiously weighted ptochos made the rich their structural opposite. New Testament writers inherit this weighted vocabulary and use it two ways: applied to human possession it almost always carries a critical edge (strongest in Luke, James, and Revelation, milder in Matthew and the Pastorals), while applied to God, Christ, and the goods of grace and faith it becomes the privileged language of divine abundance, as in Paul's "rich in mercy." Steven Friesen's and Bruce Longenecker's poverty scales clarify that the New Testament rich are the empire's thin elite, not a modern middle class. Scholars dispute whether the word, applied to people, condemns wealth as such or only its misuse, and whether James and the Pastorals stand in tension or complement each other; these debates concern the connotation of one word, not a second meaning.

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 New Testament, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. πλούσιοςlexicon
  • Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2nd ed. (1989), §57.53lexicon
  • LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement (1996), s.v. πλούσιοςlexicon
  • F. Hauck and W. Kasch, "πλοῦτος, πλούσιος, πλουτέω, πλουτίζω," TDNT VI:318-332dictionary
  • H. Balz and G. Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3 (1993), s.v. πλούσιοςdictionary
  • M. Silva, ed., NIDNTTE, vol. 3 (2014), s.v. πλοῦτοςdictionary
  • Dale C. Allison Jr., James (ICC; T&T Clark, 2013)commentary
  • Luke Timothy Johnson, The Letter of James (AB 37A; Doubleday, 1995)commentary
  • Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Eerdmans, 1997)commentary
  • Christopher M. Hays, Luke's Wealth Ethics (WUNT 2/275; Mohr Siebeck, 2010)monograph
  • Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians (WBC 42; Word, 1990)commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC; Eerdmans, 1999)commentary
  • Craig R. Koester, Revelation (AYB 38A; Yale, 2014)commentary
  • Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy (T&T Clark, 1993)monograph
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC; T&T Clark, 1999)commentary
  • Reggie M. Kidd, Wealth and Beneficence in the Pastoral Epistles (SBLDS 122; Scholars Press, 1990)monograph
  • Craig L. Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches (NSBT 7; IVP, 1999)monograph
  • Bruce W. Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Eerdmans, 2010)monograph

All attested forms of πλούσιος

nominative m s

πλούσιος, πλούσιός

Mat 19:23, Mat 27:57, Luk 16:1, Luk 16:19, Luk 16:22, Luk 18:23, Luk 19:2, 2Co 8:9

accusative m p

πλουσίους

Luk 14:12, Luk 21:1, Jas 2:5, Rev 13:16

accusative m s

πλούσιον

Mat 19:24, Mrk 10:25, Luk 18:25

nominative m p

πλούσιοι

Mrk 12:41, Jas 2:6, Rev 6:15

dative m p

πλουσίοις

Luk 6:24, 1Ti 6:17

genitive m s

πλουσίου

Luk 12:16, Luk 16:21

vocative m p

πλούσιοι

Jas 5:1