Greek word · G1570
ἔκθετος
ekthetos
exposed
'Put out, exposed.' In practice it means babies abandoned in the open, usually to die, though sometimes someone picked them up and raised them, often as slaves. It belongs to the word family ektithēmi/ekthesis, the ordinary Greek terms for infant exposure.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
'Put out, exposed.' In practice it means babies abandoned in the open, usually to die, though sometimes someone picked them up and raised them, often as slaves. It belongs to the word family ektithēmi/ekthesis, the ordinary Greek terms for infant exposure.
- Against the English
ESV and YLT 'expose' keep the specific term. KJV 'cast out', and 'abandon' in BSB, WEB and NLT, are fair but general. NIV 'throw out' leans toward Exodus 1:22 ('throw into the river'). None of the general renderings shows that Stephen picked the word his Greek-speaking world used for a familiar practice.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Exposure was legal and widespread in the Greco-Roman world. Jewish writers stood out for condemning it: Philo, Special Laws 3.110–119; Josephus, Against Apion 2.202 ('the Law orders all the offspring to be brought up'); and Tacitus, Histories 5.5, who notes as a Jewish oddity that killing any later-born child is forbidden. Wisdom of Solomon 18:5 and Philo, Life of Moses 1.10–12, use the same word family for baby Moses being 'exposed'.
Where it appears
Acts · 1
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Acts 7:19 ἔκθετα abandon
He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.
Here: The Greek word for infants left outdoors to die. This is its only appearance in the New Testament. Its partner verb returns in v.21, where Moses himself is 'exposed' and then rescued.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.