μόχθος, -ov, 6, hard and difficult labor, toil, travail; hardship, distress: 2 Co. xi. 27; 1 Th. ii. 9; 2 Th. iii. 8; see κόπος, 3b. (Hes. seut. 306; Pind., Tragg., Xen., al.; Sept. chiefly for 92.) [Sy¥N. see κόπος, fin.]

μόχθος mochthos 3x

wearisome labor, toil, travail, 2 Cor. 11:27; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8*

μόχθος, -ου, ὁ

(= Hom. μόγος), in cl. chiefly poët., [in LXX for תְּלָאָה, עָמָל, etc.;]

toil, labour, hardship, distress: II Co 11:27, I Th 2:9, II Th 3:8.†

SYN.: κόπος (q.v.), πόνος.

Μόχθος only occurs three times in the N. T., and always in closest sequence to κόπος (2 Cor. xi. 27; 1 Thess. 11. 9; 2 Thess. iii. 8). There can scarcely be a doubt of its near connexion with μόγις, this last, as Curtius suggests, being a dative plural, μόγοις, which has let fall a letter, and subsided into an adverb. The word, which does not occur in Homer nor in Plato, is the homely everyday word for that labour which, in one shape or another, is the lot under the sun of all of the sinful children of Adam. It has been suggested by some that the infinitely laborious character of labour, the more or less of distress which is inextricably bound up with it, and cannot be escaped, is hardly brought out in μόχθος with the same emphasis as it is in the other words which are here grouped with it, and especially in πόνος, and that a point of difference may here be found between them; but this is hardly the case. Phrases like the πολύμοχθος ”Apns of Euripides (Phen. 791), and they may be multiplied to any extent, do not bear out this view. Out of the four occasions on which πόνος occurs in the N. T., three are found in the Apocalypse (xvi. 10, I1; xxi. 4), and one in Colossians (iv. 13); for πόνος must there stand beyond all serious question, however there may be no fewer than four other readings, πόθος, κόπος, ζῆλος, ἀγών, which are competitors for the place that it occupies by a right better than them all. ἸΠόνος is labour such as does not stop short of demanding the whole strength of a man; and this exerted to the uttermost, if he is to accomplish the task which is before him. Thus in Homer war is constantly regarded as the πόνος, not of mortal warriors only, but immortal, of Ares himself ; πόνος ἀνδρῶν, as Theognis (985) calls it ; being joined with δῆρις (Il. xvii. 158) and with πόλεμος (xvii. 718). δ σπι. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 379 Ilovos is the standing word by which the labours of Hercules are expressed ; μόχθοι too they are sometimes, but not nearly so often, called (Sophocles, Trach. 1080, 1150). Πόνος in Plato is joined with ἀγὼν ἔσχατος (Phedr. 247 ὃ), with νόσος (244 d), with κίνδυνος (2 Alcib. 142 b), with ζημία (Rep. ii. 365 δ), in the Septuagint with ὀδύνη (1 Kin. xv. 23), with μάστιξ (Jer. vi. 7), with πληγή (2 Chr. ix. 28). The cruel bondage of the children of Israel in Kgypt is their πόνος (Exod. ii. 11). It is nothing wonderful that, signifying this, πόνος should be expressly named as having no place in the Heavenly City (Rev. xxi. 4). Κόπος is of much more frequent recurrence. It is found some twenty times in the N. T., being not so much the actual exertion which a man makes, as the lassitude or weariness (see Pott, Htym. Forsch. vol. v. p. 10) which follows on this straining of all his powers to the utmost. It is well worth our while to note the frequent use which is made of κόπος and of the verb κοπιάω, for the designating what are or ought to be the labours of the Christian ministry, containing as they do a word of warning for all that are in it engaged (John iv. 38; Acts xx. 35; Col. i. 29; 2 Cor. vi. 5; 1 Thess. iii. 5, and often). It may be said in conclusion that ‘labour,’ ‘toil’ (or -perhaps ‘ travail’) and ‘ weariness,’ are the three words -which in English best reproduce the several Greek words, μόχθος, πόνος, κόπος, with which we here have to do. eee » ” tee 2 > , § 0111, ἄμωμος, ἄμεμπτος, ἀνέγκλητος, ἀνεπίληπτος. Worps expressing severally absence of blemish, and absence of blame, are very easily confounded, and the distinction between them lost sight of; not to say that those which bear one of these meanings easily acquire and make the other their own. Take in proof the first in this group of words—of which all have to do with the Christian life, and what its character should be. We have in the rendering 380 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃ ci. of this a singular illustration of a shortcoming on the part of our Translators of 1611, which has been often noted, the failure I mean upon their parts to render one Greek word by a fixed correspondent word in the English. Τῦ 15 quite true that this feat cannot always, or nearly always, be done; but what constraining motive was there for six variations such as these which are the lot of ἄμωμος on the six occasions of its occurrence? At Ephes. i. 4 it appears as ‘ without blame’; at Col. i. 22, as ‘unblameable’; at Ephes. v. 27 as ‘ without blemish’; at Heb. ix. 14, as ‘ without spot’; at Jude 24 as ‘faultless’; at Rev. xiv. 5 as ‘ without fault.’ Of these the first and second have failed to seize the exact force of the word. No such charge can be brought against the other four; one may be happier than another, but all are sufficiently correct. Inaccurate it certainly is to render ἄμωμος ‘without blame,’ or ‘unblameable,’ seeing that μῶμος in later Hellenistic Greek has travelled from the signifying of blame to the signifying of that which is the subject of blame, a blot, that is, or spot, or blemish. ἔἴλμωμος, a rare word in classical Greek, but found in Herodotus (ii. 177), and in Aischylus (Perse, 185), in this way became the technical word to designate the absence of anything amiss in a sacrifice, of anything which would render it unworthy to be offered (Exod. xxix. 2; Num.vi.14; Ezek. xliii. 22; Philo, De Profug. 3. 15); or the sacrificing priest unworthy to offer it (1 Mace. iv. 42). When joined with dominos for the designation of this faultlessness, as it is joined at 1 Pet. i. 19, ἄμωμος would indicate the absence of internal blemish, ἄσπιλος that of external spot. Already in the Septuagint it has been transferred to the region of ethics, being of constant use there to set forth the holy walking of the faithful (Ps. exviii. (cxix. ἘΠ. V.) 1; Prov. xi. 5), and even applied as a title of honour to God Himself (Ps. xvii. 33). We find it joined with ἀνέγκλητος (Col. i. 22); and with ἅγιον δ οπι. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 381 (Ephes. i. 4; v. 27), and we may regard it as affirming a complete absence of all fault or blemish on the part of that whereof it is predicated. But if ἄμωμος is thus the ‘ unblemished,’ ἄμεμπτος is the ‘unblamed.’ There is a difference between the two statements. Christ was ἄμωμος in that there was in Him no spot or blemish, and He could say, “ Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” but in strictness of speech He was not ἄμεμπτος, nor is this epithet ever given to Him in the N. T., seeing that He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself, who slandered his footsteps and laid to his charge things that He knew not. Nor, however they may strive after this, can the saints of God lay to their account that they will certainly attain it, and that fault, just or unjust, will not be found with them. The ἄμωμος may be ἄμεμπτος (for see Luke i. 6; Phil. ii. 15), but he does not always prove so (1 Pet. 11. 12,15). At the same time there is a constant tendency to regard the ‘inculpatus ’ as also the ‘ inculpabilis,’ so that in actual usage there is a continual breaking down of the distinct and several use of these words. The O. T. uses of ἄμεμπτος, as Job xi. 4, sufficiently prove this. ᾿Ανέγκλητος, which, like ἀνεπίληπτος, is in the N. T. exclusively a word of St. Paul’s, occurring five times in his Epistles, and nowhere else, is rendered ‘ unreprovable’ (Col. i. 22), ‘blameless’ (1 Cor. 1.8: 1 Tim. 11. 10; Tit.i. 6, 7). Itis justly explained by Chrysostom as implying not acquittal merely, but absence of so much as a charge or accusation brought against him of whom it is affirmed. It moves, like ἄμωμος, not in the subjective world of the thoughts and estimates of men, but in the objective world of facts. It is an epithet by Plutarch (De Cap. ex In. Util. 5) accurately joined with ἀλοιδόρητος. In a passage cited above, namely 1 Tim. iii. 10, there is a manifest allusion to a custom which still survives in our Ordinations, at the opening of which the ordaining Bishop demands of 452, SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. §civ. the faithful present whether they know any notable crime or charge for the which those who have been presented to him for Holy Orders ought not to be ordained; he demands, in other words, whether they be ἀνέγκλητοι, that is, not merely unaccusable, but unaccused; not merely free from any just charge, for that question is reserved, if need be, for later investigation, but free from any charge at all—the intention of this citation being, that if any present has such a charge to bring, the ordination should not go forward until this had been duly sifted. ᾿Ανεπίληπτος, of somewhat rare use in classical Greek, oecurring once in Thucydides (vy. 17) and once in Plato (Phileb. 43 c), never in the Septuagint or the Apocrypha, is found in company with καθαρός (Lucian, Piscat. i. 8), with ἀνέγκλητος (ib. 46), with τέλειος (Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. 9), with ἀδιάβλητος (De Iib. Ed. 7), is in our Version twice rendered ‘blameless’ (1 Tim. iii. 2; v. 7), but once ‘unrebukeable’ (vi. 14); these three being the only occasions on which it is found in the N. T. ‘Irreprehensible,’ a word not occurring in our Authorized Version, but as old as it and older; and on one of the above occasions, namely, at 1 Tim. iii. 2, employed by the Rhemish, which had gotten it from the ‘ irreprehensibilis’ of the Vulgate, would be a nearer translation, resting as it does on the same image as the Greek; that, namely, of affording nothing which an adversary could take hold of, on which he might ground a charge: μὴ παρέχων κατηγορίας ἀφορμήν, as the Scholiast on Thucydides has it. At the same time ‘ unreprehended,’ if such a word might pass, would be a nearer rendering still.

μόχθος. For this expressive subst. = ‘‘labour,” “Shardship” (1 Th 2° a/.) cf. the mantic P Ryl 1. 2817 (iv/a.p.) κνήμη εὐώνυμος ἐὰν ἅλληται onpatve γυναῖκι ψόγον ἐκ μοιχείας δούλοις δὲ ἀπειλαὶ καὶ μόχθοι (1. ἀπειλὰς καὶ μόχθους), “if the left leg quiver, it signifies for a woman censure in consequence of adultery, and for slaves, threats and labour” (Edd.), and Kaibel 8511 (ili/A.D.) ἐσθ]λοῖς οὐ Keved μόχθων [x ]apts. The verb is found in the oracular 76. 1039! μοχθεῖν ἀνάνκη" μετα[ β]ολὴ δ᾽ ἔσται καλή, and the adj. in P Tebt I. 2457 (B.C. 117) μ[ο]χθηρὰν ἀγωγήν, ‘nefarious conduct” (Edd.), and the epigrammatic PSI I. 17 recto %-4 (iii/A.D. Ὁ) ἔνθεν és ἀθανάτους kal ἀείζωο[ν] βίον ἦλθεν | τοῦτο τὸ μοχθηρὸν σῶμ᾽ ἀποδυσάμενος.

μόχθος (mochthos) — toil. μόχθ-ος, ὁ, = Homeric μόγος, toil, hardship, distress, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἀέθλῳ δῆριν ἔχειν καὶ μ. [Refs 8th c.BC+]; μόχθων ἀμπνοά, ἀμοιβά, [Refs 5th c.BC+]: also in plural, toils, troubles, hardships, [Refs 4th c.BC+], etc.; of the labours of Heracles, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; μ. τέκνων for them, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; μόχθον ἀμφὶ πράγμασι epigram cited in [Refs 4th c.BC+]; Ἀπελλείου μ. γραφίδος, of a picture, [NT+5th c.BC+]; μ. implies hardship, πόνος work (but μ. is said to be Cretan dialect for πόνος [Refs]