φόβητρον

From the study of Luke 21:11

Range of meaning

Something that causes fear, from phobeō, 'to frighten'. It can mean a terror, a frightening sight or event, a dreadful omen, or even a bogey or scarecrow used to scare people. It names the effect, fear, not the form.

Against the English

KJV's 'fearful sights' adds the idea of something seen. The Greek only says 'terrors'. WEB's 'terrors' and YLT's 'fearful things' are closer. NIV's 'fearful events' is broader still.

How it drifted

The KJV translators probably read 'sights' in because the word comes next to 'signs from heaven', which suggested visible omens in the sky. That reading is possible, but it is an interpretation, not what the word itself says.

Used elsewhere in the period

This is its only use in the New Testament. It is rare in the Septuagint; at Isa 19:17 the land of Judah becomes a 'terror' (eis phobētron) to Egypt. It also appears in classical and medical writers (e.g. Plato, Hippocrates) for frightening things. In Roman writing, terrifying portents (prodigia) were carefully recorded as signs of coming disaster. Josephus (War 6.288–300) and Tacitus (Histories 5.13) both list such omens before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70.