Stranger and Sojourner (in the Apocrypha and the New Testament)
Stranger and Sojourner (in the Apocrypha and the New Testament)
The technical meaning attaching to the Hebrew terms is not present in the Greek words translated stranger and sojourner, and the distinctions made by English Versions of the Bible are partly only to give uniformity in the translation. For stranger the usual Greek word is , xenos, meaning primarily guest and so appearing in the combination hatred toward guests in The Wisdom of Solomon 19:13 (, misoxena). Xenos is the most common word for stranger in the New Testament (Mat 25:35, etc.), but it seems not to be used by itself with this force in the Apocrypha. Almost equally common in the New Testament is , allotrios, belonging to another (Mat 17:25, Mat 17:26; Joh 10:5 (bis)), and this is the usual word in the Apocrypha (Sirach 8:18; 1 Macc 1:38, etc.), but for some inexplicable reason the Revised Version (British and American) occasionally translates by alien (contrast, e.g. 1 Macc 1:38; 2:7). Compare the corresponding verb , apallotrioo (Eph 2:12; Eph 4:18; Col 1:21). With the definite meaning of foreigner are , allogenes, of another nation, the Revised Version (British and American) stranger (1 Esdras 8:83; 1 Macc 3:45 (the King James Version alien); Luk 17:18 (the Revised Version margin alien)), and , allophulos, of another tribe, the Revised Version (British and American) stranger (Baruch 6:5; 1 Macc 4:12, etc.) or of another nation (Act 10:28). For to sojourn the commonest form is , paroikeo, to dwell beside, the Revised Version (British and American) always to sojourn (Judith 5:7; Sirach 41:19; Luk 24:18 (the King James Version to be a stranger); Heb 11:9). The corresponding noun for sojourner is , paroikos (Sirach 29:26 f (the King James Version stranger); Act 7:6, Act 7:26; Eph 2:19; 1Pe 2:11), with , paroikia, sojourning (The Wisdom of Solomon 19:10; Sirach 16:8; Act 13:17 (the King James Version dwelling as strangers); 1Pe 1:17). In addition, , epidemeo, to be among people, is translated to sojourn in Act 2:10; Act 17:21, and its compound , parepdemos, as sojourner in 1Pe 1:1 (in Heb 11:13; 1Pe 2:11, pilgrim).