Greek word · G3939
παροικέω
paroikeō
be a stranger
To live beside or near a community without belonging to it. It means residing somewhere as a foreigner without citizen rights: a resident alien. The related nouns are paroikos (resident alien) and paroikia (a stay as a foreigner, or exile).
Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
παρ-οικέω, -ῶ
[in LXX chiefly for גּוּר, also for יָשַׁב, שָׁכַן ]
in cl., to dwell beside (with accusative), among (with dative) or near by (absol.). In late writers, to dwell in a place as a πάροικος (which see) or stranger: Luke 24:18, Hebrews 11:9.†
(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 Hebrews 11:9
- Range of meaning
To live beside or near a community without belonging to it. It means residing somewhere as a foreigner without citizen rights: a resident alien. The related nouns are paroikos (resident alien) and paroikia (a stay as a foreigner, or exile). In Greek cities a paroikos (similar to a metic, a resident foreigner) could live and work in a town but could not own land or vote.
- Against the English
KJV/YLT "sojourned" is accurate but archaic. BSB "dwelt... as a stranger" uses "stranger" in its old sense (a foreigner); today "stranger" mostly means "a person I don't know". WEB and NASB "lived as an alien" are closest to the legal sense. NIV's "made his home" turns it the other way: the word stresses that the place was not his home.
- How it drifted
"Stranger" and "sojourn" have faded from everyday English. The legal and social status (a foreigner with no landholding rights) is no longer heard, so the phrase can sound like vague loneliness or travel.
- Used elsewhere in the period
In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint, LXX) paroikeō regularly translates Hebrew gûr, "to live as a gēr (resident alien)". Gen 17:8 LXX: God gives "the land in which you sojourn (paroikeis)". Gen 23:4: Abraham tells the Hittites, "I am a paroikos and a parepidēmos among you" when he has to buy a grave. Jacob calls his life "the days of my sojourning" (paroikēseōs, Gen 47:9). Philo (On the Confusion of Tongues 77–78) says the wise "sojourn" in the earthly region as a foreign land while heaven is their homeland. The Christian use appears in 1 Pet 1:17; 2:11 and Eph 2:19.
Similar words
Where it appears
Luke · 1
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Luke 24:18 παροικεῖς visit
One of them, named Cleopas, asked Him, “Are You the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in recent days?”
Hebrews · 1
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Hebrews 11:9 παρῴκησεν he sojourned
By faith he dwelt in the promised land as a stranger in a foreign country. He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.
Here: "He sojourned": he lived in a place as a foreigner with no citizenship or land rights. The past tense sums up his whole life in Canaan as one fact: the entire time, he was a non-citizen there.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.