Emporos names a merchant, someone trading in goods. Matthew uses a searching merchant to portray the kingdom's surpassing value: finding the exceptionally precious pearl leads him to sell what he has and buy it.
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Full entry for ἔμπορος (G1713) · Open the biblical lexicon
Emporos names a merchant, someone trading in goods. Matthew uses a searching merchant to portray the kingdom's surpassing value: finding the exceptionally precious pearl leads him to sell what he has and buy it.
The BSB source-word alignment has 5 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include merchants (4), a merchant (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 13:45. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (4), Matthew (1).
Emporos names a merchant, someone trading in goods. Matthew uses a searching merchant to portray the kingdom's surpassing value: finding the exceptionally precious pearl leads him to sell what he has and buy it. Revelation places merchants in Babylon's network of luxurious wealth, mourning when no one buys their cargo. Its list of goods reaches the bodies and souls of slaves, and the chapter names deception and bloodshed as well as lost riches.
The occupation alone therefore does not establish the moral verdict. Matthew's illustrative search and Revelation's implicated traders serve different arguments. Readers should examine the value sought, the means of enrichment and the neighbors affected. The noun does not make all commerce evil, turn the kingdom into a commodity, or identify a present business or nation as Babylon simply because it trades.
Five direct BSB noun witnesses place one merchant in the pearl parable and merchants in four parts of Revelation's Babylon lament. The roles share trade vocabulary but receive distinct contextual evaluation.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.
The merchant's search leads to the precious pearl and complete reordering of possessions, illustrating kingdom value rather than pricing salvation.
All the nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her immorality. The kings of the earth were immoral with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy from the extravagance of her luxury.”
The merchants gain wealth from Babylon's extravagant luxury alongside compromised kings and nations, introducing their participation in the city's wrongs.
And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo—
The merchants mourn the loss of buyers as the ensuing cargo list includes enslaved human beings, exposing more than a neutral business downturn.
The merchants who sold these things and gained their wealth from her will stand at a distance, in fear of her torment. They will weep and mourn,
Traders enriched by the listed cargo stand at a distance in fear and grief; their loss-centered lament differs from heaven's judgment perspective.
The light of a lamp will never shine in you again, and the voices of a bride and bridegroom will never call out in you again. For your merchants were the great ones of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.”
The merchants' worldly greatness appears beside deception of the nations and the final accusation of bloodshed, rather than certifying their honorable conduct.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. a (wholesale) tradesman
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
5 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a merchant, trader
Read versea merchant, trader
Read versea merchant, trader
Read versea merchant, trader
Read versea merchant, trader
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 2 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
ἔμπορος is built from these roots:
The merchant in Matthew sees a pearl whose worth changes how he handles everything else. The parable directs attention to the kingdom's value, while the neighboring treasure picture also includes joy. Revelation's merchants likewise value something intensely, but their grief is centered on vanished trade and wealth. The chapter forces readers to look at what those profits carried: luxury goods and enslaved human lives, within a city accused of deception and bloodshed.
A study of emporos can therefore help a community examine the direction of its economic desires without treating an occupation as a moral identity. Ask what is prized, how profit is gained and whether neighbors become expendable. Let kingdom value reorder possessions toward faithfulness, and name exploitation without pretending the noun alone identifies a modern Babylon.
Matt.13.45
The BSB witnesses use a singular dative noun for the parable's merchant and plural nominative forms in Revelation. Number identifies one illustrative trader or a group; neither form independently supplies an ethical verdict.
Ezekiel 27:12-36 catalogs Tyre's trading partners, goods, wealth and human cargo before portraying collapse and lament. The shared commercial imagery helps illuminate Revelation's lament without making the cities identical or converting a Hebrew trade description into another direct Greek witness.