διασείω

From the study of Luke 3:14

Range of meaning

Literally "shake violently, shake thoroughly". By the Hellenistic and Roman period it was a set idiom for intimidating someone into handing over money, much like English "shake down". BDAG gives "extort money by violence, by intimidation".

Against the English

KJV and YLT have "do violence to no man", which modern readers hear as a general ban on physical violence. The Greek target is narrower and more concrete: using force or threats to get money. WEB's "extort from no one by violence" and BSB's "take money by force" catch the sense.

How it drifted

The KJV followed older English where "do violence" could mean wrong someone by force. Today the phrase sounds like a statement about the use of force in general, so it gets read as a comment on fighting or pacifism, which the Greek verb does not address.

Used elsewhere in the period

The papyri show it as the ordinary word for soldiers' shakedowns. In P.Oxy. II 240 (AD 37) a village scribe swears that he knows of no one in his village who has been "extorted" (diaseseismenon) by a soldier and his agents. Other Egyptian papyri list sums paid out "for extortion" to soldiers or officials (see Moulton & Milligan). The Latin Vulgate's concutiatis ("shake") reflects the same idiom in Latin.