Maid
Maid
or MAIDEN (prop. , , a girl. as corresponding to , , a young man; also , , a virgin; for which the usual term is ; but and , like , are a maid-servant). SEE HANDMAID; SEE VIRGIN.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Maid
MAID.The English words maid, maiden represent three Greek words: (Mat 9:24 f. Authorized Version maid, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 damsel); (Luk 8:51 Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maiden; Luk 8:54 Authorized Version maid, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maiden); and (Mat 26:69, Joh 18:17 Authorized Version damsel, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maid; Mar 14:66; Mar 14:69, Luk 22:56 Authorized Version and Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maid; Luk 12:45 Authorized Version maidens, Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 maidservants). The first two clearly signify young girl, answering to the Aramaic taltha (cf. Mar 5:41 and Luk 8:54 : for a discussion of the Aramaic form see art. Talitha cumi). Taltha seems to have been frequently employed in the sense of young woman. In the Targums it is used of Dinah, Miriam, and Esther. It and its Greek equivalents have almost that meaning as applied to the daughter of Jairus. seems to have lost its diminutive force in later Greek and to have been no longer employed as a familiar term, but to have been virtually equivalent to , , the feminine of , originally a diminutive of , meant in the first instance girl and then domestic female servant or slave. It has the latter meaning in the Gospels. In some passages in the LXX Septuagint (Exo 20:10, Lev 25:44 etc.) it represents mh (cf. art. Handmaid). It seems to have been used especially of a doorkeeper (Gospels, Act 12:13, Lysias cited by Wetstein). That it often referred to a slave, not a hired servant, is evident from the passages quoted by Wetstein from the grammarians, and seems to be implied in the contrast between and in Gal 4:22.
Literature.Wetstein on Mat 26:69; Levy, Chaldisches Wrterbuch, i. 303b; Swete on Mar 14:66,
W. Taylor Smith.