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Bible Dictionaries
Gluttonous
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or GLUTTONOUS.—In Matthew 11:19 = Luke 7:34 we are informed that our Lord was reproached as a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. The Greek is alike in both passages—ἄνθρωπος φάγος καὶ οἰνοπότης. The English versions are probably right in their rendering of φάγος and οἱνοπότης as implying intemperate excess. But this hardly lies in the words themselves. φάγος (Liddell and Scott, s.v.) is found only in these passages and in later ecclesiastical writers. οἰνοπότης does by usage (not by etymology) imply excess (Anacreon, 98; Call. Ep. 37; Polyb. xx. 8. 2). In Proverbs 23:20 it answers to סבא יַיִן ‘one who is drunken with wine’ (cf. Deuteronomy 21:20, Ezekiel 23:42, Hosea 4:18 for use of the Heb. root); and it is parallel with μέθυσος in Proverbs 23:21. In Proverbs 31:4 (24:72 Swete) the verb οἱνοποτέω occurs in the bad sense. But it is possible that the real force of the insult to our Lord is shown by Deuteronomy 21:20. The rebellious son is to be brought by his parents to the elders, to whom the parents are to say, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a riotous liver and a drunkard.’ He is then to be executed by stoning. It is true that the LXX Septuagint here συμβολοκοπῶν οἰνοφλυγεῖ has no resemblance to the phrase in the Gospels, but Proverbs 23:20 has μηδὲ ἐκτείνου συμβολαῖς as one half of the doublet, ‘among gluttonous eaters of flesh’ (בִּוֹלְלֵי בָשָׂר); and in Proverbs 23:21 Aq. [Note: Aquila.] , Sym., Theod. [Note: Theodotion.] agree in using the Deuteronomic word συμβολοκόπος for ולל. Delitzsch in his Heb. NT uses the words found in Deuteronomy 21:20.
We need not wonder at the non-agreement with the LXX Septuagint. For the discourse has several indications of having been spoken in Aramaic, such as the paronomasia probably to be found in the cry of the children (Matthew 11:17, Luke 7:32 ‘danced’ and ‘wept’; cf. Farrar, Life of Christ, i. 92; and the Peshitta), and the variation ἔργων—τἐκνων (Matthew 11:19, Luke 7:35) which is best explained by supposing some error in reading an Aramaic document.
George Farmer.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Gluttonous'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/g/gluttonous.html. 1906-1918.
