Backbiting (2637) katalalos by Greek Word Studies

Slanderers (2637) (KJV = "backbiting") (katalalos from katá = against + laléo = speak) is found only here in the NT and describes those who speak evil against of others with the intent to injure the one spoken about. (See also Barclay's note above on "gossips"). A slanderer is one who blackens" publicly. Backbiting involves an element of deceit and cowardice. One dictionary has this definition of backbiting: To slander the absent, like a dog biting behind the back where one cannot see; to go about as a talebearer. (Orr, J, et al: The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: 1915) Backbiters seek to ruin or defame someone’s character—they are vilifers of character. Haldane has a long note on katalalos writing that... The original word is here improperly translated backbiters. Dr. Macknight equally misses the meaning of this term, which he translates “revilers,” distinguishing it from whisperers, or “persons who speak evil of others to their face,” giving them opprobrious language and bad names. The word indeed includes such persons; but it applies to evil speaking in general,—to those, in short, who take a pleasure in scandalizing their neighbors, without any reference to the presence or absence of those who are spoken against; and it by no means designates, as he says, the giving of “opprobrious language and bad names.” Such persons are included in it, but not designated by it. Whisperers or tattlers are evil–speakers, without any peculiar distinction. Our translators have erred in rendering it backbiters. As Dr. Macknight has no authority to limit the word to what is spoken face to face, it is equally unwarrantable to confine it to what is spoken in the absence of those who are spoken against. The word translated “whisperers” refers, according to Mr. Tholuck, to a secret, and the word translated “backbiters,” to an open slander. Secrecy is undoubtedly the characteristic of the first word, but the last is not distinguished from it by contrast, as implying publicity; on the contrary, the former class is included in the latter, though here specifically marked. Besides, though the communication of both the classes referred to may usually be slander, yet it appears that the signification is more extensive. Whisperers, as speakers of evil, may be guilty when they speak nothing but truth. Mr. Stuart has here followed Mr. Tholuck. The former he makes a slander in secret, the latter a slander in public. It is not necessary that all such persons should be slanderers, and the evil–speaking of the latter may be in private as well as in public. (Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans)

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Backbiting (2637) katalalos

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