Greek word · G128

Αἰθίοψ

aithiops

Ethiopian

Literally explained by the Greeks as 'burnt-face' (from aithō, 'burn', and ōps, 'face'). It was the general Greek word for dark-skinned peoples living south of Egypt.

Appears 2 times in 1 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

.*Αἰθίοψ, -οπος, ὁ

(αἴθω, to burn, ὤψ, face; i.e. swarthy), [in LXX for כּוּשׁ ;]

Ethiopian: Acts 8:27.†

(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 Acts 8:27

Range of meaning

Literally explained by the Greeks as 'burnt-face' (from aithō, 'burn', and ōps, 'face'). It was the general Greek word for dark-skinned peoples living south of Egypt. In New Testament times it meant above all the kingdom of Kush, centred on Meroë on the Nile between the fifth and sixth cataracts (rapids), in what is now northern Sudan.

Against the English

English 'Ethiopian' now names a citizen of the modern state of Ethiopia, the highland country centred on Addis Ababa (historically Abyssinia, the heir of the kingdom of Aksum). That is a different region and a different kingdom from the Kush that Luke's Greek points to.

How it drifted

The Greek word moved. From the 4th century AD the Aksumite kingdom in the highlands took over the Greek name for itself (King Ezana's Greek inscriptions call his people 'Ethiopians'), and Aksum also conquered Meroë around that time. The Ge'ez Bible then rendered biblical Kush as Ityopya. Over the following centuries 'Ethiopia' came to mean Abyssinia, and in modern times it became the official name of that state, so the English reader now hears a place Luke was not describing.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Old Testament (LXX) regularly uses Aithiopia/Aithiops for Hebrew Kush (Gen 2:13; Isa 18:1; Jer 13:23, 'Can the Ethiopian change his skin?'; Ps 68:31, 'Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God'; Zeph 3:10, 'from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia'). Homer calls the Ethiopians 'the farthest of men' (Odyssey 1.22–24). Herodotus describes them as the tallest and most handsome of people (3.20). Strabo (17.1.54) and Pliny (Natural History 6.181–186) describe Meroë and its queens.

Where it appears

Acts · 2

  1. Acts 8:27 Αἰθίοψ Αἰθιόπων, an Ethiopian, of Ethiopians,

    So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship,

    Here: A man from Kush, the Black African kingdom on the Nile south of Egypt (capital Meroë, in today's Sudan). To Greek ears it meant someone from the far southern edge of the known world.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.