A MAR(i)Kan cyclopedia
Posted: Thu Sep 10, 2015 11:44 am
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πρασιά
πρασιά
LSJ The Online Liddell-Scott-JonesMark 6:40 καὶ ἀνέπεσαν πρασιαὶ πρασιαὶ κατὰ ἑκατὸν καὶ κατὰ πεντήκοντα.
(King James 6:39-40: And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass. And they sat down in ranks, by hundreds, and by fifties.)
Thayer's Greek LexiconA.bed in a garden, garden-plot, Od.7.127, 24.247, Thphr.HP4.4.3, Nic.Al.532, LXX Si.24.31, Dsc.4.17, Gal.UP9.6; “ἀνθῶν πρασιαί” Longus 4.2: metaph., πρασιαὶ πρασιαί in companies or groups, Ev.Marc.6.40. (Prob. from πράσον, and so prop. bed of leeks.)
II. a surgical instrument, Hermes 38.283.
Commentsπρασιά πρασιά, πρασιας, ἡ, a plot of ground, a garden-bed, Homer, Odyssey 7, 127; 24, 247; Theophrastus, hist. plant. 4, 4, 3; Nicander, Dioscorides (?), others; Sir. 24:31; ἀνέπεσον πρασιαί πρασιαί (a Hebraism), i. e. they reclined in ranks or divisions, so that the several ranks formed, as it were, separate plots, Mark 6:40
= it means simply an agricultural "bed" (Stop searching for another meaning)When Mark is telling of the feeding of the 5,000, he alone tells how they sat down in hundreds and in fifties, looking like vegetable beds in a garden (Mark 6:40); and immediately the whole scene rises before us. (Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, New Daily Study Bible, 8)
Row upon row...prasiai prasiai...[is] literally, “by garden plots” [Walter Bauer [1870-1960], F. Wilbur Gingrich [1901-1993], William F. Arndt [1880-1957] and Frederick W. Danker [1920-2012] 860a] “of hundreds and of fifties. (Black, Mark, Abingdon New Testament Commentaries)
In the primary sense, the word πρασιά means a row of leeks, and more broadly a bed of vegetables or flowers. By extension it designates a group, an ordered section. (Focant, The Gospel according to Mark: A Commentary, 260)
The strange and unusual word “garden-plots” does not seem to make much sense in Greek but arguably would be suggestive in Hebrew of the garden of Genesis [Genesis 2:8-3:24]. The repetitious phrasing here, in which the second verse offers a slight variation on the first (“garden-plots” for “green grass” and “hundreds and fifties” for “meal-eating groups”), is typical of the couplets of Hebrew verse. (Sabin, Reopening the Word : Reading Mark as Theology in the Context of Early Judaism, 8)
This descriptive word πρασιαί, garden beds, gives an admirable picturesque touch. The disposition of the people in orderly groups was for the more convenient distribution of food. (Gould, St. Mark (International Critical Commentary), 119)
The word πρασιά means ‘garden-bed’. Hermann Leberecht Strack [1848-1922] and Paul Billerbeck [1853-1932], II, p. 13, quote interesting examples from Rabbinic literature of the arrangement of students sitting in rows before their Rabbis being likened to the rows of vines in a vineyard and to beds in a garden. Specially interesting is the interpretation of Song of Solomon 8:13 (‘Thou that dwellest in the gardens’: ‘When students sit arranged like garden-beds [Hebrew ginnóniyyôt ginnóniyyôt = πρασιά πρασιά] and are engaged in studying the Torah, then I come down to them and hearken to their voice and hear them—Song of Solomon 8:13: “Cause me to hear thy voice.”’ So doubtless here in Mark it is the regular arrangement in companies to which this expression refers, not (as has been suggested) the colours of the clothes of the crowd. (Cranfield, The Gospel according to St Mark: An Introduction and Commentary, 218)