Greek word · G2940

κυβεία

kybeia

cunning

Dice-playing, gambling with dice (from kybos, 'cube, die'). By extension, trickery or fraud, since dice games were notorious for cheating.

Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

κυβία (Mt. -εία, and so Rec.), -ας, ἡ

(κύβος, a cube, a die),

dice-playing; metaphorically, trickery, sleight: Ephesians 4:14.†

(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 Ephesians 4:14

Range of meaning

Dice-playing, gambling with dice (from kybos, 'cube, die'). By extension, trickery or fraud, since dice games were notorious for cheating.

Against the English

'Sleight' (KJV), 'trickery' (WEB, NASB), 'cunning' (BSB, ESV, NIV). All give the extended sense and lose the dice-table picture. YLT's 'sleight' is likewise general.

How it drifted

No real drift, but the image is lost. Readers don't see that Paul shifts from the sea to the gambling table.

Used elsewhere in the period

Found only here in the New Testament. Plato (Phaedrus 274d) lists kybeia, dice-playing, among the inventions of the god Theuth. Later Greek writers use the word group for cheating and deception (BDAG, LSJ).

Where it appears

Ephesians · 1

  1. Ephesians 4:14 κυβείᾳ cunning

    Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.

    Here: Literally dice-playing, from kybos, 'a die'. Gambling with dice was a byword for cheating, so the word had come to mean sharp practice or rigged games. Teachers who play dice with people's convictions are running a con.

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