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chronos

χρόνος

GreekG5550time, while, ...

Appears 54 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 2:7Mat 2:16Mat 25:19Mrk 2:19Mrk 9:21Luk 1:57Luk 4:5Luk 8:27Luk 8:29Luk 18:4Luk 20:9Luk 23:8Jhn 5:6Jhn 7:33Jhn 12:35Jhn 14:9Act 1:6Act 1:7Act 1:21Act 3:21Act 7:17Act 7:23Act 8:11Act 13:18Act 14:3Act 14:28Act 15:33Act 17:30Act 27:9Rom 16:25(14:24)Gal 4:41Th 5:12Ti 1:9Tit 1:2Heb 11:321Pe 1:201Pe 4:3Jud 1:18Rev 10:6
Root family
Names & words formed with this
Word studyKHRO-nossnoun

What chronos means

time measured as a stretch: how much of it passes, how long something lasts

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

Chronos is time counted out: a length, a span, a while. It answers the question how long, not the question what kind of moment. When the New Testament wants to say that years went by, that someone waited a long while, or that a fixed amount of time had run its course, this is the word it reaches for. English keeps the root in clock-and-calendar words like chronology and chronic.

The single idea of measured duration shows up in three everyday shades. Most often it simply means a quantity of time, long or short, that elapses or remains. Sometimes it pins down the exact point on the calendar when an event happened, the date or moment of a thing. And in the plural it can name whole stretches or epochs of history, the long periods God sets and oversees, especially when a writer lines it up against its partner word for the right moment.

Those are shades of one concept, not separate words: a reader uses the plain English word time for all of them. What changes is whether the focus falls on the amount of time, the point in time, or the eras of time. The crucial contrast is not inside chronos at all but between chronos and kairos: chronos is how much time, kairos is the loaded, decisive moment within it.

Nuances

1aa length of time, a while: how long something lasts or how much has passed
Mat 25:19Mrk 2:19Mrk 9:21Luk 8:27Luk 8:29Luk 18:4Luk 20:9Luk 23:8Jhn 5:6Jhn 7:33Jhn 12:35Jhn 14:9
1bthe exact point in time of an event: its date or moment on the calendar
Mat 2:7Mat 2:16Luk 1:57Luk 4:5Act 7:17Act 7:23Gal 4:4Heb 4:7
1cthe stretches and epochs of history that God appoints and oversees
Act 1:7Act 3:21Act 17:30Rom 16:25(14:24)1Th 5:12Ti 1:9Tit 1:21Pe 1:20Jud 1:18

What scholars say about chronos

Standard lexica treat chronos as essentially one word for time as extension or duration, with contextual sub-senses (a quantity of time; the point or date of an event; in the plural, periods or epochs), rather than as a polysemous term. BDAG and LSJ organize it this way. The much-cited contrast with kairos, sharpened in older theological treatments (notably Oscar Cullmann's Christ and Time and the kind of word-study TDNT systematizes), holds as a real tendency, chronos for measured duration and kairos for the decisive, qualified moment, but James Barr's The Semantics of Biblical Language warned against making it a rigid lexical law, since the New Testament writers sometimes pair the two (Acts 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 5:1) and sometimes use either loosely. The plural phrases for appointed times or epochs (Acts 3:21; 1 Peter 1:20; the pre-temporal times of 2 Timothy 1:9 and Titus 1:2) extend the duration sense to the sweep of salvation history.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. χρόνοςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. χρόνοςlexicon
  • G. Delling, "χρόνος," TDNT 9:581-593theological-dictionary
  • James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford University Press, 1961)monograph
  • Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time, trans. Floyd V. Filson (Westminster Press, 1950)monograph

All attested forms of χρόνος

accusative m s

χρόνον

Mat 2:7, Mat 2:16, Mat 25:19, Mrk 2:19, Luk 18:4, Jhn 5:6, Jhn 7:33, Jhn 12:35

nominative m s

χρόνος

Mrk 9:21, Luk 1:57, Act 7:17, Act 7:23, Heb 11:32, 1Pe 4:3, Rev 10:6

genitive m p

χρόνων

Luk 23:8, Act 3:21, 1Th 5:1, 2Ti 1:9, Tit 1:2, 1Pe 1:20

dative m s

χρόνῳ

Luk 8:27, Jhn 14:9, Act 1:6, Act 1:21, Act 8:11

genitive m s

χρόνου

Luk 4:5, Act 27:9, Gal 4:4, Jud 1:18

accusative m p

χρόνους

Luk 20:9, Act 1:7, Act 17:30

dative m p

χρόνοις

Luk 8:29, Rom 16:25