51. V. UNIFORM GREEK USAGES: "TEMPT," "POOR"

This is also clearly its use in Luke viii. 13: "in time of trial, or trouble (not temptation in the sense of enticement, as we now use the word almost exclusively) fall away." (So Matt. xiii. 21, and Mark iv. 17.) In Acts xx. 19 Paul is evidently alluding to what he calls, in 2 Cor. xi. 26, the "perils by mine own countrymen."

In Heb. ii. 18. 1 Pet. i. 6. Rev. iii. 10 the meaning is the same.

From all this we see that in the Lord's Prayer the word should be trial or tribulation, viz., the Great Tribulation.

In Matt. iv. 1. Mark i. 13, and Luke iv. 2 the physical sufferings of our Lord are meant (compare Heb. iv. 15).

3. Poor, πένης (penēs). -The words used for and rendered "poor," πένης (penēs), πραύς (praus), πτωχός (ptōchos), and ταπεινός (tapeinos), all mean oppressed. Our Western idea of being poor has come to mean being without money, because the condition of the poor in modern times has lost the one great characteristic of the poor in past centuries, and of present times still, in the East. But the Biblical usage of the word has not changed, though customs have.

In the Greek civilization the word had much the same meaning as that in which we use it to-day, because oppression was not then associated with poverty. But the Bible deals with and describes Eastern conditions, and hence though in classical Greek πένης (penēs) meant poor as opposed to rich, πτωχός (ptōchos) meant destitute as opposed to affluent, and πραύς (praus) meant easy-tempered as opposed to violent, yet in the Bible these words are all used of the oppressed class of any country: the peasantry or fellahin, who then, as now, lived quiet lives and were the victims of constant oppression, ill-treatment, and plunder at the hands of their autocratic rulers. This is the meaning of the words poor and meek.

1 See our separate pamphlet on The Lord's Prayer, pp. 12-15, by the same author and publisher.

See Ps. x. 9; xxxvii. 14. "He lieth in wait to catch the poor;" or Ps. xxxv. 10:

"All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto Thee,

Which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him,

Yea, the poor and needy from him that spoileth him."

This is why God is represented so often as the deliverer of the poor, or oppressed (Pss. xii. 5; xxxiv. 6; xxxvii. 10,

11; xl. 17; lxxii. 4, 13; lxxvi. 9; exlvii. 6).

In the New Testament this usage is the same.

4. Paradise, παράδεισος.—Paradise is an Oriental word, and was apparently first used by Xenophon to indicate the parks of the Persian kings. It originally meant an enclosed park, planted with trees, and stocked with game.

In such paradises eastern monarchs were wont to take their pleasure in hunting.

But the Holy Spirit has exalted it, and used it in a sense higher than that in which man had ever used it.

For "the Paradise of God" is the "garden" which God planted in Eden for man's blissful abode. And when the curse shall have been removed, the whole earth will be a paradise where God shall again dwell with man.

The Bible knows no other Paradise. The Greek word παράδεισος occurs in the Septuagint twenty-eight times.

In nine it represents the Hebrew word "Eden"; and in nineteen places the Hebrew word יי (gan), garden. In

English it is rendered Eden, Garden, Forest, Orchard.

The Hebrew word Eden occurs sixteen times; and

Garden, is used of Eden, thirteen times in Genesis; and six times in other passages of "the Garden of God" (see Gen. ii.

Neh. ii. 8. Eccles. ii. 5. Song iv. 13).¹

It is man who has changed the usage of the word from its only Biblical usage, and dragged it down and fastened on it the meaning given to it in Babylonian, Jewish, and

Romish traditions.

5. "Sheōl" and "Hades."—Here, again, the Biblical usage of these words is uniform, and we must refer our

¹ See further in The Rich Man and Lazarus, by the same author and publisher, pp. 27, 28.