[B-Greek] SKUQRWPOS Mt 6:16 look of fasting
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Mon Oct 27 06:45:59 EDT 2008
On Oct 27, 2008, at 4:39 AM, Oun Kwon wrote:
> SKUQRWPOS
>
> I don't think BDAG offers much help on the meaning of this word in Mt
> 6:16 (and Lk 24:17).
> It offers glosses - sad, gloomy, sullen, dark.
>
> Do they give us a picture of the face who is on fasting? Hardly. We
> wouldn't be able to tell they are on fasting with these faces while
> they are fasting.
>
>
> (One may look sad or sullen, of course, if the person has reason to
> be. But this is not the point in the text.)
>
> When I was working in Saudi Arabia, people do fasting during a month
> long Ramadan. Esp. during hot summer it is not easy one at all.
> Amazing thing (which I still cannot figure out why) is that they can
> drink and eat as much as they want after sunset which they are
> actually eagerly waiting for! For me I don't think I can call that as
> real fasting, even though it lasts for a whole month. The only
> expression I can remember on their face is sort of being haggard
> looking. Physically they are getting tired and slowed down in
> activity. If it were during winter season, I'm sure it would be
> different.
>
> An option is 'serious-look'. But, from how serious look on a face we
> can tell that one is on fasting in Judaic fashion of twice a week?
>
> Any suggestion?
Well, the cognates don't appear in the GNT. One noteworthy factor is
that we have a compound adjective here, with -ωπος [-WPOS] meaning
"faced" or "looking." In English we use "long-faced" or "down in the
mouth" in a similar fashion, the implication being that the expression
on the face is somehow distorted, twisted. One might think of the
traditional comic and tragic masks with sides of the mouth upturned in
a happy face or downturned in an unhappy face -- or think of emoticons
for happy and unhappy faces. I can remember a similar puzzlement over
the range of the Latin adjective 'tristis', which can mean "fierce" or
"grim" or "sad" but means fundamentally 'facially expressing
discomfort" -- with one's mouth, eyes, eyebrows. How do we judge, to
use another American colloquialism, that someone is "not a happy
camper"?
SKUQRWPOS is cognate to some standard Greek words that don't appear in
the GNT: SKUZOMAI ("get angry at" -- "grimace at"), SKUDMAINW (=
SKUZOMAI). The root appears to be SKEUD/SKUD.
LSJ offers:
σκυθρωπ-ός, όν,[SKUQRWPOS, ON] also ή, όν [H, ON] Hp.Epid.
3.17.ιδ, Ephor.Fr.96J., Plu. 2.417c, etc.: (σκυθρός, ὤψ):
— [SKUQROS, WY)
of sad or angry countenance, sullen, E. Med.271, Hipp.1152; ὄμμα
καὶ πρόσωπον [OMMA KAI PROSWPON] Id.Ph.1333; ς. τοῖς
ξένοις [TOIS XENOIS] Id.Alc.774; ἐπὶ τοῖς κακοῖς
[EPI TOIS KWMOIS] X.Mem.3.10.4; opp. ἱλαρός [hILAROS],
φαιδρός [FAIDROS], ib. 2.7.12, 3.10.4; also of affected gravity,
D.45.68, Aeschin.3.20: τὸ ς.,= sq., E.Alc.797, cf. Pl.Smp.206d.
Adv., -πῶς ἔχειν [SKUQRWPWS ECEIN] X.Mem.2.7.1: Comp. -
ότερον [SKUQRWPOTERON] with greater severity, J.BJ6.2.7.
of things, gloomy, sad, melancholy, γῆρας [GHRAS] E.Ba.1252;
ὁδός [hODOS] Archyt. ap. Stob.3.1.105 (Comp.); μέλη [MELH]
Paus.10.7.5; ἡμέρα [hHMERA] Plu.Dem.30 (Sup.).
of colour, sad-coloured, dark and dull, of the river Μέλας,
[MELAS] Him.Or.23.22; of wine, ib.9.4.
As for the Jesus-saying's association of the "down-faced" expression
with fasting, I'm reminded of G.B. Shaw's dictum, "An Englishman
thinks he is being moral when he is only uncomfortable."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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