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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Mark 6:27 - 6:27
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Mark's favorite straightway. The king is prompt in his response.
Executioner (σπεκουλάτορα)
One of Mark's Latin words, speculator. A speculator was a guardsman, whose business it was to watch or spy out (speculari). It came gradually to denote one of the armed body-guard of the Roman emperor. Thus Suetonius says of Claudius that he did not dare to attend banquets unless his speculatores with their lances surrounded him. Seneca uses the word in the sense of executioner. “He met the executioners (speculatoribus), declared that he had nothing to say against the execution of the sentence, and then stretched out his neck.” Herod imitated the manners of the Roman court, and was attended by a company of speculatores, though it was not their distinctive office to act as executioners. Wyc. renders man-killer, and Tynd. hangman.