BIBLE DICTIONARY + WORD STUDY
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
GREEK · G58
agora — marketplace
ἀγορά, -ας, ἡ (ἀγείρω, to bring together) [in LXX for עִזָּבוֹן, שׁוּק ;] 1. an assembly (Hom., Xen., al.). 2. a place of assembly, a public place or forum, a market-place (Hom., Thuc, al.; LXX): Mat.11:16 20:2 23:7, Mrk.6:56 (cf . MM, VGT, see word, ἀγυιά) 7:4 (Bl., §46, 7) 12:38, Luk.7:32 (Bl., l.with) 11:43 20:46, Act.16:19 17:7 (Cremer, 59; MM, VGT, see word). † (AS)
11 tagged verse occurrences · see every occurrence →Any place of public resort, and hence a public place or broad street (Matt. 11:16; 20:3), as well as a forum or market-place proper, where goods were exposed for sale, and where public assemblies and trials were held (Acts 16:19; 17:17). This word occurs in the Old Testament only in Ezek. 27:13. In early times markets were held at the gates of cities, where commodities were exposed for sale (2 Kings 7:18). In large towns the sale of particular articles seems to have been confined to certain streets, as we may infer from such expressions as “the bakers’ street” (Jer. 37:21), and from the circumstance that in the time of Josephus the valley between Mounts Zion and Moriah was called the Tyropoeon or the “valley of the cheesemakers.”
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.
