Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Luke: Chapter 3].
ancient Greek. It means to shake (seismic disturbance,
earthquake) thoroughly (\dia\) and so thoroughly to terrify, to
extort money or property by intimidating (3Macc. 7:21). The Latin
employs _concutere_, so. It was a process of blackmail to which
Socrates refers (Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, ii. 9,1). This was a
constant temptation to soldiers. Might does not make right with
Jesus. {Neither exact anything wrongfully} (\m•de
sukophant•s•te\). In Athens those whose business it was to inform
against any one whom they might find exporting figs out of Attica
were called fig-showers or sycophants (\sukophantai\). From
\sukon\, fig, and \phain•\, show. Some modern scholars reject
this explanation since no actual examples of the word meaning
merely a fig-shower have been found. But without this view it is
all conjectural. From the time of Aristophanes on it was used for
any malignant informer or calumniator. These soldiers were
tempted to obtain money by informing against the rich, blackmail
again. So the word comes to mean to accuse falsely. The
sycophants came to be a regular class of informers or slanderers
in Athens. Socrates is quoted by Xenophon as actually advising
Crito to employ one in self-defence, like the modern way of using
one gunman against another. Demosthenes pictures a sycophant as
one who "glides about the market like a scorpion, with his
venomous sting all ready, spying out whom he may surprise with
misfortune and ruin and from whom he can most easily extort
money, by threatening him with an action dangerous in its
consequences" (quoted by Vincent). The word occurs only in Luke
in the N.T., here and in Lu 19:8 in the confession of Zaccheus.
It occurs in the LXX and often in the old Greek. {Be content with
your wages} (\arkeisthe tois ops•niois hum•n\). Discontent with
wages was a complaint of mercenary soldiers. This word for wages
was originally anything cooked (\opson\, cooked food), and bought
(from \•neomai\, to buy). Hence, "rations," "pay," wages.
\Opsarion\, diminutive of \opson\, was anything eaten with bread
like broiled fish. So \ops•nion\ comes to mean whatever is bought
to be eaten with bread and then a soldier's pay or allowance
(Polybius, and other late Greek writers) as in 1Co 9:7. Paul
uses the singular of a preacher's pay (2Co 11:8) and the plural
of the wages of sin (Ro 6:23) = death (death is the diet of
sin).
3:15 {Were in expectation} (\prosdok•ntos\). Genitive absolute of
this striking verb already seen in 1:21. {Reasoned}
(\dialogizomen•n\). Genitive absolute again. John's preaching
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