the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Generation (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (γενεά, 1 Peter 2:9 : ‘a chosen generation,’ Authorized Version = γένος ἐκλετόν = ‘an elect race,’ Revised Version )
The use of γενεά in the NT closely reproduces, as in the Septuagint it translates, the Hebrew דּוֹר. The two words, however, reach their common significance from different directions. Etymologically, γενεά expresses the idea of kinship. It signifies descent, or the descendants, from the same ancestral stock; then those of the same lineage who are born about the same time; then the lifetime of such (measured from birth of parent to birth of child), or, more generally, an ‘age’ or lengthened period of time. The root-idea of דּוֹר, on the other hand, is a period of time: hence it comes to mean the people whose lifetime falls approximately within a given period, and finally acquires the genealogical sense of a ‘generation (see Liddell and Scott and Oxford Hebrew Lexicon, s.v.).
In the apostolic writings, the primary meaning of the word is (a) the body of individuals of the same race who are born about the same time (Hebrews 3:10, Acts 13:36, Authorized Version and Revised Version margin); but this sense usually passes into that of (b), the period covered by the lifetime of such (Acts 13:36 Revised Version , 14:16; 15:21, Ephesians 3:5); and thus the plural, γενεαί, comes to mean (c) all time, past or future, as consisting in the succession of such periods. In Colossians 1:26, ‘the mystery hath been hid from the ages and from the generations,’ the ‘generation’ is a subdivision of the ‘age’ and is added for the sake of emphasis, and in Ephesians 3:21 the Apostle, struggling to express the idea of the Eternal Future, not only describes it as ‘the age of ages’ (the age whose component parts are themselves ages), but adds to the picture the endless succession of ‘generations’ which constitute each ‘age’-‘unto all the generations of the age of ages’ (cf. Psalms 102:24, Enoch ix. 4). Finally (d) the word is used, as often in the OT (Deuteronomy 32:5; Deuteronomy 32:20, Psalms 12:7; Psalms 24:6 etc.), with a moral connotation, as in Philippians 2:15 and Acts 2:40. In the latter passage the term has an eschatological colouring. ‘This crooked generation’ is the present, swiftly transient period of the world’s history, which is leading up to the Day of Judgment and the New Age.
Literature.-H. Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lexicon of NTGreek3, 1880: Thayer Grimm’s Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer , Greek-English Lexicon of the NT2, 1890; Theodor Keim, Jesus of Nazara, Eng. translation , 1881. vol. v. p. 245 n. [Note: . note.]
Robert Law.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Generation (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/g/generation-2.html. 1906-1918.
