Greek word · G1712

ἐμπόριον

emporion

marketplace/trade

A place of trade: a market, a commercial port or trading station, a mart. It comes from emporos, 'merchant, traveling trader'. It names the activity and its location. It does not judge whether the trade is honest.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

ἐμπόριον, -ον, τό

(ἔμπορος) [in LXX: Deuteronomy 33:19 (סָפַן), Ezekiel 27:3 (רָכַל); ἐ. εἶναι, Isaiah 23:17 (זָנָה)* ;]

a trading place, exchange: οἶκος ἐμπορίου, John 2:16.†

(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 John 2:16

Range of meaning

A place of trade: a market, a commercial port or trading station, a mart. It comes from emporos, 'merchant, traveling trader'. It names the activity and its location. It does not judge whether the trade is honest.

Against the English

KJV/YLT 'house of merchandise', ESV 'house of trade', NASB 'place of business', NIV 'market', BSB/WEB/NLT 'marketplace'. All are broadly accurate. 'Merchandise' in modern English usually means goods, while in 1611 it also meant the business of trading itself.

How it drifted

The Greek has not drifted. The common misreading comes from harmonising John with the Synoptic 'den of robbers' (Mark 11:17), which shifts the charge from trading to cheating.

Used elsewhere in the period

In classical Greek (e.g. Herodotus, Thucydides) it is used for trading ports. In the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word family describes Tyre, the great merchant city (Isa 23:17; Ezek 27). The closest Old Testament background is Zechariah 14:21: 'there shall no longer be a kenaʿani in the house of the LORD of hosts on that day.' Kenaʿani means 'Canaanite' but also 'trader' (as in Prov 31:24; Hos 12:7 Heb. 12:8), and the Aramaic Targum of Zechariah reads 'trader'.

Similar words

Where it appears

John · 1

  1. John 2:16 ἐμπορίου. of trade.

    To those selling doves He said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father’s house into a marketplace!”

    Here: A place of buying and selling, a trading post. The charge is that the house has become a place of commerce. It does not say the sellers were robbers. The word appears only here in the New Testament.

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