trublion

τρύβλιον occurs twice in the New Testament, Matthew 26:23 and Mark 14:20, both within the prediction of the betrayal. LSJ glosses it "cup, bowl" (citing Aristophanes, Knights 650, Birds 77, and the line εἰρήνης ῥοφήσει τρύβλιον at Acharnians 278), BDAG "bowl, dish," and Louw-Nida file it among household containers. The neuter ending is diminutive in form only: Pape states outright that it is no diminutive (kein dim.), and the Greek Liddell-Scott marks it ὑποκορ. μόνον κατὰ τύπον, the usual Koine bleaching also visible in παιδίον and βιβλίον; a rarer simplex τρυβλίς / τρύβλη stands beside it. Frisk describes it as a technical word without etymology naming a vessel of unknown form and varying size, and records van Effenterre's proposal that it is closer to a jug or pot than to a shallow dish; Chantraine likewise treats it as a colloquial word of unknown origin. In the Septuagint it is the standard equivalent of קְעָרָה, chiefly the tableware of the sanctuary (Exodus 25:29; Numbers 4:7; the twelve tribal offerings of Numbers 7), and the translators consistently distinguish it from φιάλη (מִזְרָק) and θυίσκη (כַּף); Josephus uses it the same way of the tabernacle vessels (Antiquities 3.143). Ben Sira 31:14 gives the closest thematic parallel, a rule of table manners about not crowding a neighbour at the shared dish. Documentary papyri and inscriptions of the sort collected by Moulton and Milligan show it as ordinary domestic ware, and the archaeology of first-century Galilee and Judea (Berlin, Magness) confirms that common serving bowls, whether local ceramic or chalk, rather than individual place settings, were the norm. Matthew has the aorist participle ἐμβάψας with ἐν plus dative, Mark the present ἐμβαπτόμενος with εἰς, whose ongoing force pictures a general dipping around the table and so reinforces that the saying describes a shared condition. Mark 14:20 carries a genuine variant: Westcott and Hort print εἰς τὸ ἓν τρύβλιον, Tischendorf, Nestle 1904, and the Byzantine text omit ἕν, and NA27/UBS4 bracket it; the longer reading heightens the intimacy motif, and the manuscript roster should be checked against Metzger and the NA28 apparatus. Jeremias (The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, 204), Brown, and France read the dish saying as an evocation of Psalm 41:9 (LXX 40:10) rather than a disclosure of the traitor's identity, which John 13:26 supplies with the handed ψωμίον; the older harmonizing view of John Gill, that several dishes were in use and that Judas reaching into the same one was a real-time sign, is generally rejected because dipping was communal. Jeremias also enlisted the dipping for a Passover setting (haroset and bitter herbs, Mishnah Pesahim 10:3 and b. Pesahim 116a), though a shared sauce bowl was equally at home at an ordinary meal. One frequent error should be noted: 2 Kings 21:13, where Jerusalem is wiped like a dish, is not evidence for this word, since the Septuagint there reads ἀλάβαστρος. παροψίς at Matthew 23:25-26 (Luke 11:39 has πίναξ) is a separate item of tableware and should not be conflated with it.