Occupy (Hastings' Dictionary)

The verb to occupy has become much restricted in meaning since 1611. Following the Lat. occupare (ob-capere?) it expresses in AV usually the idea of being ‘taken up with’ any- thing. (1) A good example, and not far removed from mod. use, is He 13° ‘meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein’ (TR ol περιπατήσαντες, edd. οἱ περιπατοῦντες, ‘they that occupied themselves,’ RVm ‘ walked’). Cf. Erasmus, Commune Crede, fol. 14, ‘ The science of physike ...

treateth and is occupied about thynges which do helpe or hurte the helthe of the body’; Rhem. NT on Mk 3, ‘ He so oceupieth him selfe for soules, that his kinne thinke him madde.’ (2) Still nearer the mod. use is 1 Co 1416 ‘how shall he that oceupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks?’ (ὁ ἀναπληρῶν τὸν τόπον τοῦ ἰδιώτου, RV ‘filleth the lace’). Cf. again Erasmus, Com. Crede, fol. 17, ‘The mystycall ΣΟΙ therefore of Christe, occupieth the iii.

parte f the symbole or crede.’ (3) But the word some- times means ‘use’ or ‘employ,’ as Ex 38% ‘All the gold that was occupied for the work in all the work of the holy place, even the gold of the offer- ing, was twenty and nine talents’ (seya aq;7-52, RV ‘that was used’); Jg 16" ‘If they bind me fast with new ropes that never were occupied’ (npxdp 093 ayyred we, lit. as AVm and RV ‘ where- with no work hath been done’). Cf. Gosson, Schoole of Abuse, p.

72, ‘Iron with muche occupiying is worne too naught, with little handeling gathereth rust’; Hamilton, Catechism, fol. xvi. ‘Thai lufe nocht God with al thair strenth, quhassvir occupyis yair strenth in doing evil deids’; Lv 7* Tind. ‘Neverthelater the fatt of the beest that dyeth alone and the fatt of that which is torne with wilde beestes, maye be occupide in all maner uses’; and Skelton in Skeat’s Specimens, p.

146— : ‘And of this poore vassall He made a kynge royall, And gave him a realme to rule, That occupyed a showell, A mattoke and a spade.’ (4) And, lastly, trade with, as Ezk 27° ‘all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise’; so 27%, where the Heb. verb is the same (31); RV retains “occupy,” but with ‘exchange’ in margin. In 27!6 1.2 another verb (jp}) is_ transla’ ‘occupy’ (‘the occupied in ἮΝ fairs’); RV has ‘traded.’ In 27?!

‘they occupied with thee in lambs,’ the Heb. expression (77; ‘192 779) is lit. as AVm and RV ‘they were the merchants of thy hand.’ Another example of the same meaning is Lk 19 ‘ And he walled: his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come’ (πραγματεύσασθε; RV ‘Trade ye herewith’). The tr. ‘occupy’ here is from Cranmer, the Bishops, and the Rheims; Wyc. has 1382 ‘marchaundise ye,’ 1388 ‘chaffare ye’; Tind.

‘by and sell,’ followed by Geneva, his meaning of ‘occupy’ may be ODED 583 illustrated from Coverdale, as Is 23'718 ‘The Lorde shall viset the citie of Tirus, and it shal come agayne to hyr Marchaundyse, and shal occupie with al the Kingdomes that be in the worlde. But all his occupienge and wynnynge shalbe halowed unto the Lorde’; or from the Rhemish Version, as Mt 25% ‘And he that had received the five talents, went his way, and occupied with the same, and gained other five.’ J. HASTINGS.