Greek word · G5115
τόξον
toxon
bow
A bow, the archer's weapon. It appears only here in the New Testament.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
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 Revelation 6:2
- Range of meaning
A bow, the archer's weapon. It appears only here in the New Testament.
- Against the English
'Bow' is accurate. What English readers miss is what the weapon suggested. To people in the Roman province of Asia, a horseman with a bow called up eastern cavalry, not Roman legions.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Septuagint: the bow of invading armies 'from the north' (Jeremiah 6:23; 50:42), the bow of Elam that God will break (Jeremiah 49:35), Gog's bow struck from his hand (Ezekiel 39:3), and God's own bow of judgment (Psalm 7:12; Lamentations 2:4; Habakkuk 3:9). Greek and Roman historians describe the Parthians as deadly mounted archers: Plutarch's account of Crassus' disaster at Carrhae in 53 BC, and Tacitus on the Roman surrender to the Parthian king Vologeses at Rhandeia in AD 62 (Annals 15). The rainbow of Genesis 9:13 is also toxon in the Septuagint, but Revelation uses a different word (iris) for the rainbow (4:3; 10:1), so a link to Noah's covenant is unlikely.
Where it appears
Revelation · 1
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Revelation 6:2 τόξον. a bow.
So I looked and saw a white horse, and its rider held a bow. And he was given a crown, and he rode out to overcome and conquer.
Here: The archer's bow, found only here in the New Testament. A mounted archer was the trademark of eastern armies, above all the Parthians, Rome's feared rivals beyond the Euphrates. In the prophets the bow is also a weapon of invading nations and of God's judgment.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.