Greece

— in the prophet Zechariah (9:13) called Javan, and in the prophet Daniel (8:21) Javan [as given], in general was known to the Hebrews under the name Javan (Ezek. 27:13). In the New Testament, under this name, in a more general sense, are meant properly Greece, Ionia, and Asia Minor. In the days of Alexander the Great, the Greeks were masters of Egypt, Syria, as well as of the lands and regions lying beyond the Euphrates; hence the name “Greek” became rather indefinite and was applied by the Jews to all pagans who were under the rule of the Greek empire.

The word “Greek” was for the Jews synonymous with the word “pagan,” so that for them the whole world was divided into Jews and pagans. All those who did not belong to the Jewish people were called Hellenes, or Greeks (Acts 20:21; Rom. 1:16; 1 Cor. 1:22–24), while for the Greeks all others were barbarians — uncultured, unlearned people, or those who did not speak the language of the country in which they lived. The victories and conquests of Alexander of Macedon in the East, nearly three centuries before the Christian era, served as one of the chief causes of the almost universal spread of the Greek language, and 270 years before Christ the Holy Scripture of the Old Testament was translated into the Greek language, and thereafter all the books of the New Testament, with the possible exception of the Gospel of Matthew, written in Hebrew, were written in the Greek language.

The well-known apostolic men also wrote in Greek. The Lord and Savior, His apostles, and probably the Jewish people spoke predominantly in the Syriac language, though it may be thought that commercial relations acquainted the Jews with the Greek language as well; undoubtedly the Syriac language predominated because it was the native tongue. The Greek language, spoken in Palestine and in which the New Testament was written, was Greco-Alexandrian. The Jerusalem crowd also understood the Greek language somewhat, and on one occasion was ready to listen to the Apostle Paul’s preaching in Greek; but when they heard that he spoke in Hebrew, or more precisely in Syro-Chaldean, then, according to the testimony of the writer of the book of Acts, they kept silence all the more.

The name “Greek” in many places in the book of Acts does not properly mean natives of Greece, but Hellenistic Jews, who used the Greek language in their conversations. To these are opposed the Hebrews — Jews native to Palestine, and speaking predominantly in the Aramaic language. As nations, Jews and Greeks were naturally distinct from one another, but with respect to language, within the same nation, sometimes the Hebrew and sometimes the Hellenistic language was in use.