StrongerBible

strōnnumi

στρώννυμι

GreekG4766spread, furnished, ...

Appears 7 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 21:8 (2×)Mrk 11:8 (2×)Mrk 14:15Luk 22:12Act 9:34
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studySTROH-noo-meeverb

What strōnnumi means

to spread something out flat over a surface: to lay cloth, branches, or bedding down so that it covers what is underneath.

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

The picture behind this word is simple and physical. Something soft and flat gets laid out across a surface until the surface is covered. What changes from scene to scene is only what gets spread, and why.

Outside Jerusalem the crowds pull off their cloaks and cut leafy branches and lay them across the road, turning the road into a carpet and the arrival into a welcome fit for a king. Luke tells the same moment with a related verb built on this one (ὑποστρώννυμι), which spells out that the cloaks went down underneath him as he rode over them.

The other two uses move indoors, and both are ordinary household language. A room that has been "spread" is a dining room with its couches and their coverings already laid out, so English Bibles call the upper room "furnished". And when Peter tells Aeneas to get up and spread for himself, he is telling a man who has not risen from his mat in eight years to make his own bed. Nearby, Mark and Luke both reach for a broader word for getting ready (ἑτοιμάζω); this verb is the narrower one, naming the actual laying out.

Nothing in the word itself is religious. Its weight in each scene comes from who is doing the spreading, and for whom.

Nuances

1ato spread cloaks and branches out over a road, carpeting the way for someone passing.
TranslatabilityDirect
Mat 21:8 (2×)Mrk 11:8 (2×)
1bto have a room laid out with its dining couches and coverings, so that it stands ready for a meal.
Mrk 14:15Luk 22:12
1cto spread bedding out, that is, to make a bed.
Act 9:34

What scholars say about strōnnumi

The critical lexicons treat στρώννυμι (also spelled στρωννύω, and cognate with Attic στόρνυμι) as a single verb meaning "to spread, strew," with three well-attested applications in Hellenistic Greek: spreading garments or foliage over a surface, furnishing a dining room with couches and their coverings, and preparing bedding. BDAG and LSJ divide the range along these lines, and no standard lexicon posits homonymy here. In the Synoptic triumphal-entry pericopes the simple verb appears at Matthew 21:8 and Mark 11:8 (aorist ἔστρωσαν alongside imperfect ἐστρώννυον), where Luke 19:36 substitutes the compound ὑποστρώννυμι. The perfect passive participle ἐστρωμένον at Mark 14:15 and Luke 22:12 is idiomatic for a triclinium laid out for a formal meal; commentators including France take it to indicate couches and coverings already in place rather than furniture in the modern sense. The imperative στρῶσον σεαυτῷ at Acts 9:34 is taken by Barrett and Fitzmyer as a command to make his own bed, the demonstration that the paralytic's limbs now function; a minority construes it of spreading a table for a meal, a use the verb also bears in wider Greek.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. στρωννύω/στρώννυμιlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. στόρνυμι (στρώννυμι)lexicon
  • C. K. Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, International Critical Commentary (1994)commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, Anchor Bible (1998)commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, New International Greek Testament Commentary (2002)commentary

All attested forms of στρώννυμι

aorist active indicative 3p

ἔστρωσαν

Mat 21:8, Mrk 11:8

imperfect active indicative 3p

ἐστρώννυον

Mat 21:8, Mrk 11:8

perfect passive participle accusative n s

ἐστρωμένον

Mrk 14:15, Luk 22:12

aorist active imperative 2s

στρῶσον

Act 9:34