Sense: kingdom (people)
n. — the collective body of people and leaders that compose the domain of a king or queen.
He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom (βασιλεία) divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.”
Matthew 12:25 (NRSV)
In every-day speech, we often say things like, “The city voted for a new mayor.” Language extensions like this are so common that we are unaware of it. We know that “city” doesn’t refer to the physical structures of buildings and streets and houses—it refers to the inhabitants of the city. Today’s example verse uses the same type of sense. A “kingdom (domain)” in the Bible Sense Lexicon is a place, whereas “kingdom (people)” refers to the people that live in a kingdom. This concordance entry gives us access to information concerning kingdoms as agents or “experiencers” of actions, rather than kingdoms as locations. What do we learn about kingdoms in this sense? In the Gospels, kingdoms are generally referred to as places of potential turmoil. Here in Matthew 12:25, a kingdom can be “divided against itself.” In places like Matthew 24:7, kingdoms rise against each other. The only other references to kingdoms in this sense are found in the synoptic parallels in Mark and Luke.
What is the Bible Sense Lexicon?
Sense of the Day is based on content from Logos’ Bible Sense Lexicon, which organizes biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek words by meaning based on a variety of semantic relationships. Sense of the Day provides examples of senses in context, along with insight into their application for theology and interpretation.
The Bible Sense Lexicon is a Logos dataset available in Logos 5 Gold and higher base packages. If you’re enrolled in the Logos Academic Discount Program, you can also find the Bible Sense Lexicon in the Biblical Languages base package. Take your studies even further by exploring semantic domains, engaging the biblical text like never before.
Learn more about the Bible Sense Lexicon.