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( ãåíåÜ , 1Pe_2:9 : ‘a chosen generation,’ Authorized Version = ãÝíïò ἐêëåôüí = ‘an elect race,’ Revised Version )
The use of ãåíåÜ in the NT closely reproduces, as in the Septuagint it translates, the Hebrew ãּåֹø . The two words, however, reach their common significance from different directions. Etymologically, ãåíåÜ expresses the idea of kinship. It signifies descent, or the descendants, from the same ancestral stock; then those of the same lineage who are born about the same time; then the lifetime of such (measured from birth of parent to birth of child), or, more generally, an ‘age’ or lengthened period of time. The root-idea of ãּåֹø , on the other hand, is a period of time: hence it comes to mean the people whose lifetime falls approximately within a given period, and finally acquires the genealogical sense of a ‘generation (see Liddell and Scott and Oxford Hebrew Lexicon, s.v.).
In the apostolic writings, the primary meaning of the word is (a) the body of individuals of the same race who are born about the same time (Heb_3:10, Act_13:36, Authorized Version and Revised Version margin); but this sense usually passes into that of (b), the period covered by the lifetime of such (Act_13:36 Revised Version , 14:16; 15:21, Eph_3:5); and thus the plural, ãåíåáß , comes to mean (c) all time, past or future, as consisting in the succession of such periods. In Col_1:26, ‘the mystery hath been hid from the ages and from the generations,’ the ‘generation’ is a subdivision of the ‘age’ and is added for the sake of emphasis, and in Eph_3:21 the Apostle, struggling to express the idea of the Eternal Future, not only describes it as ‘the age of ages’ (the age whose component parts are themselves ages), but adds to the picture the endless succession of ‘generations’ which constitute each ‘age’-‘unto all the generations of the age of ages’ (cf. Psa_102:24, Enoch ix. 4). Finally (d) the word is used, as often in the OT (Deu_32:5; Deu_32:20, Psa_12:7; Psa_24:6 etc.), with a moral connotation, as in Php_2:15 and Act_2:40. In the latter passage the term has an eschatological colouring. ‘This crooked generation’ is the present, swiftly transient period of the world’s history, which is leading up to the Day of Judgment and the New Age.
Literature.-H. Cremer, Bibl.-Theol. Lexicon of NTGreek3, 1880: Thayer Grimm’s Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer , Greek-English Lexicon of the NT2, 1890; Theodor Keim, Jesus of Nazara, Eng. translation , 1881. vol. v. p. 245 n. [Note: . note.]
Robert Law.