Greek word · G31

ἀγγελία

angelia

message

Message, news, announcement, report, the thing a messenger (angelos) carries. Classical and Hellenistic Greek use it for dispatches, reports and proclamations. It can also mean a command passed on by a messenger.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

ἀγγελία, -ας, ἡ

(ἄγγελος), [in LXX chiefly for שְׁמוּעָה ;]

a message: 1Jo.1:5, 3:11 (Cremer, 18; MM, VGT, see word).†

(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 1 John 1:5

Range of meaning

Message, news, announcement, report, the thing a messenger (angelos) carries. Classical and Hellenistic Greek use it for dispatches, reports and proclamations. It can also mean a command passed on by a messenger.

Against the English

"Message" (all major versions) is accurate. What English loses is the sense of a dispatch received from someone else and faithfully delivered, a sense the Greek carries through its word-family echo with anangellomen.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the New Testament only here and 1 John 3:11 ("this is the message you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another"). The two "messages" frame the letter: God is light, and love one another. LXX examples include Prov 25:25 ("good news from a far country") and Isa 28:9.

From the study of 1 John 3:11

Range of meaning

A message, news, report or announcement, especially one carried by a messenger (angelos) on behalf of someone else. It comes from the same root as angelos (messenger) and euangelion (good news).

Against the English

"Message" is accurate. English "message" can sound like any piece of information, though. The Greek word carries the idea of an announcement sent from someone and delivered with that sender's authority.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) it is used for news or a report: the news about Saul and Jonathan reaching Jerusalem (2 Sam 4:4), and "a good report" that gladdens the heart (Prov 12:25). In the New Testament it occurs only in 1 John 1:5 and 3:11. In 1:5 John introduces it with "which we have heard from him and announce to you", using the related verb anangellō.

Where it appears

1 John · 2

  1. 1 John 1:5 ἀγγελία message

    And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

    Here: A message carried from someone, the word a messenger (angelos) brings. In the New Testament it appears only here and in 1 John 3:11, where the message is "love one another".

  2. 1 John 3:11 ἀγγελία message

    This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.

    Here: A message delivered by a messenger, carrying the authority of the one who sent it. In the New Testament the word appears only here and in 1 John 1:5. It casts the call to mutual love as part of the proclamation itself, not a later add-on.

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