φιλάργυρος

From the study of 2 Timothy 3:2

Range of meaning

'Silver-loving': fond of money, greedy for gain. Used of people whose loyalties can be bought or whose religion serves profit.

Against the English

KJV's 'covetous' is broader: it suggests desiring anything that belongs to someone else. The Greek is specifically about money. Modern versions' 'lovers of money' is exact.

Used elsewhere in the period

Luke 16:14 describes some Pharisees as philarguroi. 1 Timothy 6:5–10 attacks teachers who treat godliness as a way to make money, and calls love of money (philarguria) a root of all kinds of evil. That was a commonplace of the time: a Jewish moral poem from roughly the same period (Pseudo-Phocylides 42) says love of money is 'the mother of all evil'. Greek philosophers regularly accused rival teachers of being in it for the fees.

From the study of Didache 3:5

Range of meaning

'Fond of silver': loving money, greedy, attached to wealth. It names an inner appetite, not an outward act.

Against the English

Lake's 'lover of money' is close to the Greek. Some modern translations say 'greedy,' which is fine but loses the 'love' part of the word: this is attachment, not only wanting more.

Used elsewhere in the period

Luke 16:14 (the Pharisees 'were lovers of money') and 2 Timothy 3:2. 4 Maccabees 2:8 speaks of the person who is philargyros being restrained by the Law. 1 Timothy 6:10 calls the related noun philargyria 'a root of all kinds of evils.' The Testament of Judah (19:1) uses the same 'leads to' pattern: love of money leads to idolatry.

From the study of Luke 16:14

Range of meaning

Compound of φίλος ('loving, fond of') + ἄργυρος ('silver', the standard metal of coinage, hence 'money'). It means attached to money, avaricious, greedy for gain. The related noun φιλαργυρία is 'love of money'. The word describes what a person is devoted to, not how much they have.

Against the English

'Lovers of money' (BSB, WEB, YLT; ESV and NASB are similar) is precise. The KJV's 'covetous' is a fair 17th-century equivalent, but today 'covetous' tends to suggest envy of what someone else owns (as in the tenth commandment). The Greek is narrower and more concrete: a love of money as such.

How it drifted

'Covetous' has become rare and churchy. Modern readers link it to 'Thou shalt not covet', which is about desiring a neighbour's goods. That shifts the stress from loyalty to money toward envy.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the NT the word occurs only here and in 2 Timothy 3:2 ('lovers of self, lovers of money'). The noun appears in 1 Timothy 6:10 ('the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil'). It is used in the Septuagint (Greek OT) at 4 Maccabees 2:8 and the noun at 2 Maccabees 10:20 and 4 Maccabees 1:26. In Greek moral writing, being 'money-loving' was a standard charge against false teachers: philosophers and sophists who taught for pay were mocked as φιλάργυροι (a theme going back to Plato's attacks on the sophists and common in later moralists). Hellenistic Jewish writers also list love of money among the vices (e.g. Testament of Judah 18–19; Philo).