FACTS about the BIBLE

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 249, 22 October 1935, Page 8

FACTS about the BIBLE

The Officer {'Matt. 5 : 25)

In a familiar passage during tho course of his Sermon on the Mount, the Way-shower offered the warning that one should agree with one’s adversary quickly, lest he “deliver thee to the judge, and. the judge deliver thee to the officer (Matt. 5:25). The word rendered “officer” in this verse is huperetes, a term which in the Greek of that day was often used in a general sense to designate “an inferior official in attendance on a superior.” Josephus, the Jewish historian, informs ns that it was customary for each judge to have two such men under him, and refers to them as “assessors” while it may be inferred from Matt. 5:25 that they also acted as police, seeing that those who had been found guilty by the “judge” were duly “cast into prison” (Matt. 5:25). In a closely parallel passage, Luke uses the word praktor, “bailiff” or “police officer,” which is also rendered “officer” in the Authorized Version (see, Luke 12:58).