Officer (Hastings' Dictionary)

A word used both in AV and in RV to translate some eight Heb. words in OT and two Gr. words in NT. The Heb. words, according to their derivation, represent five fami- lies—(1) nizzab, nézib, ‘one set up’; the former in 1 K 47 of Solomon’s commissariat officers, the latter in the same sense in 4" (as to its meaning in 1S 10° see Driver, ad loc.) (2) pakéd, pékuddah, pakid, ‘inspector.’ (3) rab, ‘great one.’ (4) shotér=(a) ‘arranger,’ (6) ‘scribe’ (see Dillmann on Ex 5%). (δ) saris, ‘eunuch.

’ (The 'dsé hammé- lvkah of Est 9, AV, ‘officers,’ is in RV now rendered Bape that did the business’). ‘ Officer’ most frequently stands for shdtér and saris (LXX εὐνοῦχος, EV in Est always ‘chamberlain,’ but only * In He 9%, 1 P 2% rendered ‘bear’; see in LXX Is 6811 (for Sap), v.12 (for xb). t Except v.15 (apn; of. Lv 27%): om would not here be suitable.

OFFICER 583 once besides, 2 K 23"), and it seems very doubtful whether the meaning of the latter was ever widened into officer generally, Potiphar’s case being by most critics regarded as no exact exception. It is noticeable that the idea of subordination which lies in the NT ὑπηρέτης (the original for ‘officer’ in all NT passages except Lk 12° πράκτωρ) does not show itself in the Heb, originals.

It is noticeable also that ὑπηρέτης, the almost sole NT original, is never in the LXX employed to render any of the Heb. words given above, and, though occurring twenty times in NT, occurs but twice in the Gr. canonical OT (Pr 1435, Is 32°), and but twice in the uncanonical (Wis 6‘, Three“). It would seem that, apart from saris and perhaps occasional'y shoter (comp. Dt 16% with Mt 5” ‘judge... officer’), the Heb.

words rendered ‘ officer’ suggest no distinctive function, whereas the NT ὑπηρέτης (which has lost all reminiscence of its original meaning of ‘under-oarsman ’—perhaps one of the lower two out of the three assigned to an oar) in some dozen passages out of the twenty means dis- tinctly bailiffs or police officers of the Recthiedran or other court of justice, in accordance with one use of the same word at Athens, where ὑπηρέται were the subordinates of those important police magis- trates called the Eleven (Plato, Phedo, 11633), and one use by Josephus (Anz.

Iv. viii. 14), when, in his account of Moses’ judicial arrangements, he gives the same title to the two Levites who were at- tached as clerks to each Jewish court constituted out of the seven chief men of each city. An apparently synonymous term for these clerks, confined, as a translation of shétér, to Dt, is the curious and uncertain γραμματοεισαγωγεύς, perliaps (as Driver suggests) the title of some law officer at Alexandria.

The duties of ‘officers’ (shétérim) as described in OT were various: they made proclamations (Dt 20°: 8.9), they conveyed orders (Jos 11° 33) to the people in time of war; in 1 and 2 Ch we find them as subordinate officials, sometimes in a military (1 Ch 27), sometimes in a judicial capacity (1 Ch 234), and on one occasion superintending the repairs of the temple (2 Ch 3438), much as shotérim were also Pharaoh's ‘ taskmasters,’ superintending the labour of the Israelites (Ex 5° ete.)

See Driver on Dt 115. In NT, ὑπηρέτης, where it does not mean a servant generaty, (‘of Christ,’ 1 Co 44, Ac 26%; ‘of the word,’ Lk 13), or an assistant for a special purpose (Ac 13°, John Mark, possibly in the main is ἈΡ- tizing), or an attendant (Lk 4°, the attendant at the synagogue service; see MINISTER),* is most naturally explained in a sense similar to that of shotér in Dt 1618 (cf.

Mt 555), though perhaps in a sense somewhat more confined, as a subordinate official in connexion with a court of justice, whose duty it was, as warder or sergeant, to carry into effect the decisions or maintain the dignity and authority of the judges.

Thus the ὑπηρέται of the Sanhedrin were sent to arrest Jesus (Jn 7%), did finally seize Him in Gethsemane (Jn 18°), ‘received him with blows of their hands’ (Mk 14%), one ὑπηρέτης striking Him for His answer to the high priest (Jn 1853); and similar ὑπηρέται under com- mand of a captain of the temple police (στρατηγός, ef. Jos. Ant. XxX. vi. 2; Schiirer, HJP τι. i. 258) were commissioned to arrest Peter and John (Ac 4! δ᾽".

3), Probably, when Jesus said, ‘If my king dom were of this world, my ὑπηρέται would now be striving’ (Jn 18"), He drew His analogy from this temple usage. Luke’s πράκτωρ (1255), the avenger of the Tragedians (Asch. Zum. 319), the tax- gatherer of Demosthenes (778. 18), the exactor of * Cf. art. Mark (Jon), p. 245>, where it is suggested thal even the ὑπηρέτης of Ac 185 is used in this sense—that is to say John Mark may have been a fazzan, or ‘synagogue minister.

’ Isaiah (313 LXX), the public accountant of the pyri (3 cent. B.C., see Deissmann, Beitrdge, p. ἴδ} has now become with him a synonym for the (See MINISTER, ad ὑπηρέτης of a court of justice. J. MASSIE. 7in.) 0G (ν, ‘Ay).—The king of Bashan at the time of the end of the wanderings of the Israelites in the wilderness. He and his people were conquered at Edrei. That city and Ashtaroth were his capitals (Jos 13"). He was ‘of the remnant of the Rephaim’ (loc, cit.)

or giants, and had in all ‘threescore cities, all the region of Argob’* (Dt 3). These were ‘cities fenced with high walls, gates, and bars’ (Dt 3°), so that his kingdom wasa powerfulone. His territory became the possession of the half-tribe of Manasseh (under Jair the son (i.e. descendant) of Manasseh), which remained in the trans-Jordanic territory. The bedstead (?

sarcophagus) of the king was a famous one; it seems to have been as of black basalt ; and it had found its way, when the Book of Deuteronomy was written, to Rabbah of the children of Ammon (Dt 34).+ Many ancient sarcophagi of black basalt have been found in the districts east of the Jordan.

The conquest of Og by Moses was looked upon as one of the great events of Jewish history; we find it referred to by the Gibeonite ambassadors to Joshua (Jos 919), as Mb in the making of the covenant in Neh 9” and in Ps 135" 136”. Many legends have gathered about his name. Pope Gelasius, in the 5th cent., issued a decree condemning a book which at that time was current under the name of Og. Lrrexature.—The latest authority on Og is Driver’s Deutero- nomy, see esp. pp. 7f., 53f.; cf.

also Porter, Giant Cities of Bashan, 12f., 94; Conder, Heth and Moab, 160f.; G. A. Smith, Hist. Geog. 675t.; Wright, Palmyra and Zenobia, 284 ff. H. A. REDPATH.