Greek word · G1037
βυθός
bythos
the deep
The deep, depth, especially the depths of the sea; by extension, the open sea far from shore.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
βυθός, -οῦ, ὁ,
[in LXX: Exodus 15:5, Nehemiah 9:11 (מְצוֹלָה), Psa.67 (68):22 68 (69):2, 15 106 (107):24 (מְצוּלָה)* ;]
1. the bottom.
2. the depth of the sea, the deep sea: 2 Corinthians 11:25.
† (AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 2 Corinthians 11:25
- Range of meaning
The deep, depth, especially the depths of the sea; by extension, the open sea far from shore.
- Against the English
KJV/WEB/NASB "in the deep" is literal but can be heard as "under the water". BSB/NIV "in the open sea" and ESV/NLT "adrift at sea" give the likely sense, and "adrift" adds a reasonable interpretation that is not in the Greek.
- How it drifted
The older English idiom "the deep" for the sea has faded, so a modern reader can take "in the deep" to mean submerged.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Septuagint, Exod 15:5 ("they sank into the deep like a stone") and Neh 9:11 (2 Esdras 19:11, "you threw their pursuers into the deep") use bythos for the sea as a place of drowning. Its only New Testament use is here.
Where it appears
2 Corinthians · 1
-
2 Corinthians 11:25 βυθῷ deep [sea]
Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.
Here: "The deep": the open sea, far from land. It probably describes being adrift, clinging to wreckage, after one of the shipwrecks just mentioned.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.