πραγματεύομαι

From the study of Luke 19:13

Range of meaning

To be busy with affairs (πράγματα, 'matters, business'). Most often it means doing business, trading or engaging in commerce. It can also mean managing public or official affairs. In this verse it is an order given once, covering the whole stretch of time: 'get on with trading.'

Against the English

Modern versions say 'conduct business,' 'do business,' 'engage in business,' 'put this money to work' or 'invest.' The KJV's 'Occupy' meant the same thing in 1611, but to a modern reader it suggests holding territory or simply keeping busy.

How it drifted

In early modern English, 'occupy' could mean 'to use, employ, trade with.' The KJV uses it this way elsewhere, for merchants who 'occupied' goods in Tyre's markets (Ezekiel 27). That commercial sense later died out, and the military and 'take up space' senses took over.

Used elsewhere in the period

The word appears only here in the New Testament. Its compound διαπραγματεύομαι ('to gain by trading') follows in v.15. In Greek literature and the papyri (everyday documents preserved in Egypt) it is ordinary commercial and administrative language. In the Greek version of Daniel 8:27 (Theodotion), Daniel rises and 'went about the king's business' (ἐπραγματευόμην τὰ ἔργα τοῦ βασιλέως), which is the same kind of action in a royal setting. The Latin Vulgate translates it as negotiamini, 'do business.'