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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the NT: Malice
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( êáêßá )
Malice is the propensity to inflict injury upon another, or to take pleasure in his misfortunes. In early English it denoted wickedness in general (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iii. 223), but the modern meaning is found in Shakespeare, e.g. in Othello’s words:
‘Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice’
(Act v. sc. ii. line 342).
êáêßá changed its connotation in much the same way. In classical Greek it was not a particular fault or vice, but that badness of nature or character (opp. to ἀñåôÞ , ‘virtue,’ ‘excellence’) which is the root of all faults. Cicero discusses the point in Tusc. Disp. IV. xv. 34: ‘Hujus igitur virtutis contraria est vitiositas. Sic enim malo quam malitiam appellare eam, quam Graeci êáêßáí appellant. Nam malitia certi cujusdam vitii nomen est; vitiositas omnium.’ In the NT the context generally indicates that êáêßá is a specific fault or vice. The compound êáêïçèåéá (‘malicious disposition’) designates but one of the many elements or workings of the reprobate mind (Rom_1:29). Christians recall the time, before ‘the washing of regeneration,’ when they were ‘living in malice ( ἐí êáêßᾳ ) and envy’ (Tit_3:3). êáêßá is one of the sins which the believer must resolutely put away (Eph_4:31, Col_3:8); he is not to eat the Christian passover with the leaven of malice (1Co_5:8); in malice he is to be a babe (1Co_14:20). Without apparent cause the Revisers prefer ‘wickedness’ in Jam_1:21, 1Pe_2:1; 1Pe_2:16, relegating ‘malice’ to the margin. Only once is the wider meaning unquestionable: the êáêßá of which Simon the Magian is urged to repent is no specific fault, but the deep-seated wickedness of a man who is still in the gall of bitterness (Act_8:22-23).
James Strahan.