ἐκκλείω

From the study of Romans 3:27

Range of meaning

To shut out, to lock out, to exclude, for example from a house, city or group. The only other use in the New Testament is Galatians 4:17, where the agitators 'want to shut you out'.

Against the English

'Excluded' is accurate but abstract. The Greek pictures a door slammed and locked. The aorist tense (a simple past, viewing the action as a whole) says the exclusion has already happened. BSB 'It is excluded' and KJV 'It is excluded' read as a present state, while YLT 'it was excluded' keeps the past event.

Used elsewhere in the period

In ordinary Greek the word is used for shutting people out of a place or excluding them from a share in something. Paul uses it of social exclusion in Galatians 4:17.

From the study of Galatians 4:17

Range of meaning

To shut out or exclude. It is used literally of locking someone out of a house or city, and figuratively of ruling something out. Elsewhere in the NT it appears only at Rom 3:27, where boasting is "excluded".

Against the English

KJV, ESV and NASB say "exclude" or "shut out", which keeps the open-ended Greek. BSB ("isolate you from us"), NIV ("alienate you from us") and NLT ("shut you off from me") add Paul as the one the Galatians are cut off from. That is a defensible interpretation, but it narrows a sentence Paul left open. WEB's "alienate" softens the image of a closed door.

Used elsewhere in the period

The word is common in Hellenistic Greek for shutting gates or doors against someone (e.g. in historians such as Polybius). Its figurative use for ruling something out is well established.