Greek word · G590
ἀπόδημος
apodēmos
absent
'Away from one's people (dēmos)': abroad, absent on a journey, living in another country.
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
- Range of meaning
'Away from one's people (dēmos)': abroad, absent on a journey, living in another country.
- Against the English
BSB 'going on a journey', KJV 'taking a far journey', WEB 'traveling to another country', YLT 'gone abroad'. All are fair. Most of them make it sound like the start of a trip, but the Greek adjective describes a state: he is away.
- Used elsewhere in the period
This is its only New Testament occurrence. The related verb apodēmeō appears in parallel parables: Matt 21:33; 25:14–15; Luke 15:13; 19:12; 20:9. In ordinary Greek usage it describes people living or travelling abroad.
Similar words
Where it appears
Mark · 1
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Mark 13:34 ἀπόδημος going on a journey
It is like a man going on a journey who left his house, put each servant in charge of his own task, and instructed the doorkeeper to keep watch.
Here: An adjective, not a verb: the man is 'away from his people', absent abroad. The word appears only here in the New Testament. It stresses the state of absence, so the household carries on without him in the house.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.