διαρρήγνυμι

From the study of Mark 14:63

Range of meaning

To tear something apart or right through: clothing, nets (Luke 5:6), chains (Luke 8:29). Applied to clothing, it is the standard Greek wording for the Israelite gesture of tearing one's garments.

Against the English

'Tore' and 'rent' are accurate. What English cannot carry is that this was a known, coded act with its own rules, not just a sudden flash of temper.

How it drifted

In Israel, tearing clothes was a recognised sign of grief, horror or protest. Modern Western readers have no such custom, so they tend to read it as losing control.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) the same expression translates Hebrew qāraʿ ('tear') for mourning and alarm: Jacob over Joseph (Gen 37:34), David's servants (2 Sam 13:31). The closest parallel is Hezekiah's officials, who come with torn clothes after the Assyrian envoy mocks Israel's God (2 Kgs 18:37), and then Hezekiah himself tears his clothes (2 Kgs 19:1). Barnabas and Paul 'tore their garments' (διαρρήξαντες) when the people of Lystra tried to worship them as gods (Acts 14:14). That is another reaction to something offensive to God's honour. Mattathias (1 Macc 2:14) and Jonathan, himself high priest at the time (1 Macc 11:71), tear their garments in crisis. Josephus describes chief priests with torn garments in public protest under the governor Florus (War 2.316–322). Later rabbinic law (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7:5, compiled c. AD 200) rules that when judges hear blasphemy repeated in testimony, they 'stand on their feet and tear their clothes, and never mend them'. Lev 21:10 (Septuagint: τὰ ἱμάτια οὐ διαρρήξει) forbids the high priest to tear his garments, but the context is mourning for the dead. The Mishnah (Horayot 3:5) says a high priest tears his garment 'from below', which shows that later tradition did not take Lev 21:10 as a total ban.

From the study of Matthew 26:65

Range of meaning

To tear apart or rip through. It is used for nets breaking (Luke 5:6), chains snapping (Luke 8:29), and above all for tearing one's clothes as a public sign of grief, horror or protest.

Against the English

"Tore" (most versions) or "rent" (KJV, YLT) is accurate. What English readers miss is that this was an expected, readable gesture. It was not a private loss of temper.

Used elsewhere in the period

The LXX uses this verb for Reuben and Jacob tearing their clothes over Joseph (Genesis 37:29, 34) and for Joshua after the defeat at Ai (Joshua 7:6). Hezekiah's officials tore their clothes after hearing the Assyrian's blasphemous taunts (2 Kings 18:37), and Hezekiah did the same (19:1). Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes when the crowd at Lystra tries to worship them as gods (Acts 14:14). The Mishnah rules that judges who hear blasphemy "stand on their feet and tear their garments and do not mend them" (Sanhedrin 7:5). Leviticus 21:10 forbids the high priest to tear his clothes in mourning, but later Jewish practice let him tear from the lower hem (m. Horayot 3:5). 1 Maccabees 11:71 and Josephus (Jewish War 2.316–322) show high priests tearing their garments in public crises.