- GREAVES only in 1 Samuel 17:6, a piece of defensive armour (q.v.)
reaching from the foot to the knee; from French greve, “the shin.” They
were the Roman cothurni. - GRECIANS Hellenists, Greek-Jews; Jews born in a foreign country, and
thus did not speak Hebrew (Acts 6:1; 9:29), nor join in the Hebrew
services of the Jews in Palestine, but had synagogues of their own in
Jerusalem. Joel 3:6 =Greeks. - GREECE orginally consisted of the four provinces of Macedonia, Epirus,
Achaia, and Peleponnesus. In Acts 20:2 it designates only the Roman
province of Macedonia. Greece was conquered by the Romans B.C. 146.
After passing through various changes it was erected into an independent
monarchy in 1831.
Moses makes mention of Greece under the name of Javan (Genesis
10:2-5); and this name does not again occur in the Old Testament till the
time of Joel (3:6). Then the Greeks and Hebrews first came into contact in
the Tyrian slave-market. Prophetic notice is taken of Greece in Daniel
8:21.
The cities of Greece were the special scenes of the labours of the apostle
Paul.
- GREEK Found only in the New Testament, where a distinction is
observed between “Greek” and “Grecian” (q.v.). The former is (1) a Greek
by race (Acts 16:1-3; 18:17; Romans 1:14), or (2) a Gentile as opposed to
a Jew (Romans 2:9, 10). The latter, meaning properly “one who speaks
Greek,” is a foreign Jew opposed to a home Jew who dwelt in Palestine.
The word “Grecians” in Acts 11:20 should be “Greeks,” denoting the
heathen Greeks of that city, as rendered in the Revised Version according
to the reading of the best manuscripts (“Hellenes”).