StrongerBible

ptōchos

πτωχός

GreekG4434poor, beggar

Appears 34 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 5:3Mat 11:5Mat 19:21Mat 26:9Mat 26:11Mrk 10:21Mrk 12:42Mrk 12:43Mrk 14:5Mrk 14:7Luk 4:18Luk 6:20Luk 7:22Luk 14:13Luk 14:21Luk 16:20Luk 16:22Luk 18:22Luk 19:8Luk 21:3Jhn 12:5Jhn 12:6Jhn 12:8Jhn 13:29Rom 15:262Co 6:10Gal 2:10Gal 4:9Jas 2:2Jas 2:3Jas 2:5Jas 2:6Rev 3:17Rev 13:16
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradepto-KHOSnoun

What ptōchos means

the destitute poor: a person who has nothing and must depend on others to survive

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is the strongest word the New Testament has for poverty. It does not describe the working person who scrapes by with nothing to spare; it describes the person who has fallen below survival, who owns nothing and lives by begging or by the charity of others. The picture buried in the word is a beggar bent over with hand out, shrinking back in shame.

In ordinary Greek the word was an insult, marking someone shamed, homeless, and socially invisible. What changed it was the way the Old Testament was translated into Greek: there this word became the standard term for the poor, and it picked up everything the Hebrew prophets and psalms had said about the afflicted, namely that the poor are not merely unfortunate but are the people God watches over and promises to lift up. So in the New Testament the word still names the genuinely destitute, but it carries that added weight: these are the people Jesus declares blessed and the people God has chosen.

Because the core idea is having nothing at all, the word is also used a few times as a vivid image: something or someone called "poor" in this sense is bankrupt, powerless, unable to give what others need. The literal meaning and the figurative one share the same heart, so they are held together here as one word rather than split apart.

The senses below sort the uses by emphasis: the plainly material poor who fill most of the occurrences, the poor singled out as the favored heirs of God's kingdom, and the handful of places where the word paints a picture of being spiritually or utterly bankrupt.

Nuances

1athe materially destitute: beggars and those living at the very bottom, with no means of their own
Mat 19:21Mat 26:9Mat 26:11Mrk 10:21Mrk 12:42Mrk 12:43Mrk 14:5Mrk 14:7Luk 14:13Luk 14:21Luk 16:20Luk 16:22
1bthe poor as the people God has chosen and promised to bless: the destitute named as heirs of the kingdom
Mat 5:3Mat 11:5Luk 4:18Luk 6:20Luk 7:22Jas 2:5
1cfiguratively bankrupt: utterly without resources, unable to enrich or help anyone
Gal 4:9Rev 3:17

What scholars say about ptōchos

Lexica agree on the sense: πτωχός denotes the destitute beggar, etymologically from πτώσσω ("to crouch, cower"), and is classically distinguished from πένης (the working poor with no surplus) along the line drawn in Aristophanes, Plutus 552-554, and codified by Hauck/Bammel (TDNT VI 885-915) and Trench (Synonyms, mendicus vs pauper). LSJ notes the word "always had a bad sense till it was ennobled in the Gospels." Current scholarship (Cecchet; Coin-Longeray; Louw-Nida 57.53; BDAG) treats the πτωχός/πένης contrast as a real terminological tendency rather than a rigid dichotomy, especially in Koine. The decisive semantic development is the Septuagint's use of πτωχός as the chief rendering of the Anawim vocabulary (עָנִי, אֶבְיוֹן, דַּל, עָנָו), traced theologically by Gelin (Les Pauvres de Yahvé), Lohfink, Kraus, Hoppe, and Bauckham, and qualified by Mowinckel and Gillingham against a reified "pauper-party." On Matthew 5:3 vs Luke 6:20 the modern consensus (Davies-Allison, ICC; Betz, Hermeneia; Guelich; Luz; France; Hagner; on the Lukan side Green, Bovon, Nolland, Fitzmyer, Marshall, Bock) rejects the older "spiritualization" thesis, anchoring "poor in spirit" in Isaiah 61:1 and the Qumran parallel עֲנָוֵי רוּחַ (1QM 14:7). Friesen's Poverty Scale (JSNT 2004) and Longenecker's Economy Scale (JSNT 2009), with Oakes and Scheidel, locate the πτωχοί in the bottom roughly 25-28% of the Roman population.

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

  • Hauck, F., and Bammel, E., "πτωχός κτλ.," TDNT VI: 885-915lexicon
  • BDAG, s.v. πτωχόςlexicon
  • Louw, J. P., and Nida, E. A., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, 57.53lexicon
  • Trench, R. C., Synonyms of the New Testament, §xxxvireference
  • Gelin, A., Les Pauvres de Yahvé (1953; ET The Poor of Yahweh, 1964)monograph
  • Davies, W. D., and Allison, D. C., The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC, vol. 1, 442-44commentary
  • Betz, H. D., The Sermon on the Mount, Hermeneia, 115commentary
  • Green, J. B., The Gospel of Luke, NICNT, 267commentary
  • Bauckham, R., James: Wisdom of James, Disciple of Jesus the Sagemonograph
  • Friesen, S. J., "Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus," JSNT 26.3 (2004): 323-61article
  • Longenecker, B. W., Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Eerdmans, 2010)monograph

All attested forms of πτωχός

dative m p

πτωχοῖς

Mat 19:21, Mat 26:9, Mrk 10:21, Mrk 14:5, Luk 4:18, Luk 18:22, Luk 19:8, Jhn 12:5

accusative m p

πτωχοὺς, πτωχούς

Mat 26:11, Mrk 14:7, Luk 14:21, Jhn 12:8, Rom 15:26, Jas 2:5, Rev 13:16, Luk 14:13

nominative m p

πτωχοὶ, πτωχοί

Mat 5:3, Mat 11:5, Luk 7:22, 2Co 6:10, Luk 6:20

nominative f s

πτωχὴ

Mrk 12:42, Mrk 12:43, Luk 21:3

nominative m s

πτωχὸς

Luk 16:20, Jas 2:2, Rev 3:17

accusative m s

πτωχόν, πτωχὸν

Jas 2:6, Luk 16:22

genitive m p

πτωχῶν

Jhn 12:6, Gal 2:10

accusative n p

πτωχὰ

Gal 4:9

dative m s

πτωχῷ

Jas 2:3