Greek word · G4114

πλάτος

platos

width

The four ordinary words for spatial measurement: breadth, length, height, depth. Listed together, they express total extent: the full size of something in every direction.

Appears 4 times in 3 verses of the Greek New Testament. ·

What it means

πλάτος, -ους, τό

[in LXX chiefly for רֹחַב ;]

breadth: Ephesians 3:18, Revelation 21:16; τ. π. τῆς γῆς (Habakkuk 1:6, מֶרְחָב), Revelation 20:9.†

(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 Ephesians 3:18

Range of meaning

The four ordinary words for spatial measurement: breadth, length, height, depth. Listed together, they express total extent: the full size of something in every direction.

Against the English

Most versions keep the four nouns and leave the object unnamed, as the Greek does. NIV and NLT add the object ('the love of Christ' / 'his love') from verse 19, which settles an open question for the reader.

How it drifted

Not a drift in the words themselves. The risk is interpretive: preachers often assign each dimension a separate meaning, a practice going back at least to Augustine, who matched the four to the arms of the cross. The Greek uses one article to group them as a single whole.

Used elsewhere in the period

Similar lists elsewhere express what is beyond human reach. Job 11:7-9 says God's wisdom is higher than heaven, deeper than Sheol, longer than the earth and broader than the sea. Sirach 1:3 asks: 'The height of heaven, the breadth of the earth, the abyss, and wisdom, who can search them out?' Romans 8:39 has 'height' and 'depth' as cosmic realms, and Romans 11:33 has 'the depth of the riches and wisdom'. Measuring a sacred building or city appears in Ezekiel 40-48, Zechariah 2:1-2 and Revelation 21:16. Some Greek philosophers used dimensions for the size of the universe. A Greek magical papyrus (PGM IV) strings similar dimension terms together in an invocation of cosmic power.

Where it appears

Ephesians · 1

  1. Ephesians 3:18 πλάτος breadth

    will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth

    Here: The first of four measurements. It is the ordinary word for the width of a building, a city or the earth (as in Revelation 21:16).

Revelation · 3

  1. Revelation 20:9 πλάτος breadth

    And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

    Here: 'The breadth.' It means the wide extent of the land rather than a particular plain. It echoes Habakkuk 1:6 (Greek), where the Babylonians march 'over the breadths of the earth' to seize homes that are not theirs.

  2. Revelation 21:16 πλάτος. πλάτος width., breadth

    The city lies foursquare, with its width the same as its length. And he measured the city with the rod, and all its dimensions were equal—12,000 stadia in length and width and height.

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