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This renders three Greek words in the NT:
1. ἀíôßäéêïò , properly an adversary in a lawsuit, and used of an earthly adversary in Mat_5:25, Luk_12:58; Luk_18:3 -all these with a legal reference. It is used of an enemy of God in 1Sa_2:10 (Septuagint ), and in 1Pe_5:8 of ‘the enemy,’ Satan; in this last passage äéÜäïëïò is anarthrous, as a proper name, while ἀíôßäéêïò has the article (see Devil and Satan).
2. ἀíôéêåßìåíïò , used in Luk_13:17 of our Lord’s Jewish opponents, and in Luk_21:15 of all adversaries of the disciples, is employed by St. Paul to denote those who oppose the Christian religion, probably in all cases with the suggestion that the devil is working through them. Such are the ‘adversaries’ of 1Co_16:9, Php_1:28; in 1Ti_5:14 Chrysostom takes the ‘adversary’ to be Satan, the ‘reviler’ (cf. 1Ti_5:15), or he may be the human enemy as prompted by Satan. In 2Th_2:4 ‘he that opposeth’ ( ὁ ἀíôéêåßìåíïò ) is Antichrist (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), whose parousia is according to the working of Satan (1Ti_5:9); and it is interesting to note that the letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons ( Historia Ecclesiastica (Eusebius, etc.)v. i. 5) uses this expression absolutely of Satan, or of Antichrist, working through the persecutors, and ‘giving us a foretaste of his unbridled activity at his future coming.’
3. ὑðåíáíôßïò is used in Heb_10:27 of the adversaries of God, apostates from Christ, probably with reference to Isa_26:11, where the Septuagint has the same word. A similar phrase in Tit_2:8 is ‘he that is of the contrary part,’ an opponent, ὁ ἐî ἐíáíôßáò . In Col_2:14 the word ὑðåíáíôßïò is used of an inanimate object: ‘the bond … which was contrary to us.’
A. J. Maclean.