Greek word · G6020
δοκιμασία
dokimasia
examination
Testing, examination, scrutiny. It comes from the family of dokimazō ('assay, test to approve'), used of testing metals and coins to see if they are genuine. In Athens the dokimasia was the formal vetting of a citizen's qualifications before he took public office.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament.
What it means
δοκιμασία, -ας, ἡ
(δοκιμάζω), [in LXX: Sirach 6:21 * ;]
a testing, proving: Hebrews 3:9 (LXX).†
SYN.: πειράζω (see Tr., Syn., LXXiv; Cremer, 494 ff., 699 ff.). (AS)
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
Testing, examination, scrutiny. It comes from the family of dokimazō ('assay, test to approve'), used of testing metals and coins to see if they are genuine. In Athens the dokimasia was the formal vetting of a citizen's qualifications before he took public office.
- Against the English
BSB's 'tested and tried Me' and NASB's 'tried Me by testing Me' make it sound like a second verb. KJV's 'proved me' follows the later text, which has the verb. Neither carries the image of an official inspection of credentials.
- How it drifted
KJV 'proved' meant 'tested' (as in 'the exception proves the rule' = tests it). Modern readers hear 'proved' as 'showed to be true'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Not used elsewhere in the New Testament. The Greek Psalm 94:9 has the verb edokimasan, which renders Hebrew bachan, 'examine, assay' (used for refining metal, e.g. Zechariah 13:9). The noun appears in Greek civic writers (Lysias, Aristotle's Constitution of Athens) for the vetting of officials.
Similar words
Where it appears
Hebrews · 1
-
Hebrews 3:9 δοκιμασίᾳ testing
where your fathers tested and tried Me, and for forty years saw My works.
Here: A formal checking-out, like assaying metal or vetting a candidate. The fathers put God through an inspection, as if he were a suspect official whose credentials needed proving.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.