λοιμός

From the study of Acts 24:5

Range of meaning

Basically 'plague, pestilence, epidemic' (Luke 21:11, 'famines and plagues'). When applied to a person it means 'a public pest, a menace, a scourge on the community': someone whose presence infects and harms the social body (BDAG s.v. λοιμός).

Against the English

KJV has 'pestilent fellow', BSB 'pestilence', ESV and WEB 'plague', NASB 'a real pest', NIV and NLT 'troublemaker'. 'Plague' and 'pestilence' keep the picture of contagion. 'Pest' and 'troublemaker' shrink it to an annoying person.

How it drifted

In modern English 'pest' has faded to mean a nuisance or an irritating person. The Greek word is the word for an epidemic disease, and calling someone that called them a deadly danger to the community.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) 'men of loimos' translates the Hebrew 'sons of Belial', meaning worthless and destructive men. The sons of Eli are called this (1 Kingdoms = 1 Samuel 2:12, compare 1:16, 25:17). In 1 Maccabees 10:61 'pestilent men' from Israel bring accusations against Jonathan before a Hellenistic king, which is a close parallel in situation: Jews accusing a fellow Jew before a foreign ruler. Psalm 1:1 in the Septuagint has 'the seat of the pestilent' for 'the seat of scoffers'. Classical orators such as Demosthenes also used it as a term of abuse for political opponents. A striking near-parallel is Emperor Claudius' letter to the Alexandrians (AD 41, P.Lond. 1912). He warns the Jews there that if they bring in more Jews from Syria and Egypt he will treat them as 'stirring up a common plague (nosos) for the whole inhabited world (oikoumenē)'.

From the study of Luke 21:11

Range of meaning

A deadly epidemic or plague. Ancient people did not know about germs. Plague was often seen as a blow sent by the gods or by God. The word was also used of a person as a 'pest' (Acts 24:5, where Paul is called 'a plague').

Against the English

'Pestilences' (KJV, BSB) and 'plagues' (WEB) are both fine. What English loses is the near-rhyme with limoi, 'famines'. In Greek they differ by one letter.

Used elsewhere in the period

The pair limos/loimos goes back a long way in Greek. Hesiod (Works and Days 243) says Zeus sends 'famine together with plague' (limon homou kai loimon) on a wicked city. Thucydides (2.54) reports that during the plague at Athens people argued whether an old oracle had said limos or loimos. The prophets' list of judgments, 'sword, famine and pestilence' (Jer 14:12; 21:7; Ezek 5:12; 14:21), stands behind this verse; the Septuagint usually translates 'pestilence' there as thanatos, 'death'. Real events: a famine under Claudius (Acts 11:28; Josephus, Antiquities 20.101), and plague at Rome in AD 65 (Tacitus, Annals 16.13).