FW-G5506 (officer)
χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos)
A compound word combining “leaders” (-archos) of “one thousand” (chili-), chiliarchos (G5506) were Roman officers known as tribunes. There were six tribunes to a legion; five “narrow stripes” and a “broad stripe” above them who was second in command to a legate. Each tribune nominally commanded two cohorts of about 500 men each, but social hierarchy and high turnover meant the real command responsibility fell to the centurions (hekatontarchēs, G1543), the noncommissioned officers of the Roman army.
Occurrences
The KJV typically translates chiliarchos as “captain” but the ESV does a better job of prioritizing historical accuracy by acknowledging the corresponding Roman rank by rendering it “tribune.” It occurs just once each in the gospels of Mark and John because, during Jesus’ lifetime, the vast majority of military forces in Galilee were local Herodian soldiers. There was a cohort in Jerusalem, but its chiliarchos likely spent most of his time in Caesarea with Pilate. Chiliarchos appears 17 times in the book of Acts, with all but one being a reference to Claudias Lysias (Acts 21-23), the tribune who protected Psaul from a religious mob and who ultimately fulfills his request to be sent to Rome for a trial before the emperor (Acts 21-23). Here are some of the occurrences in the New Testament;
Mark 6:21 But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his nobles and chiliarchos and the leading men of Galilee.”
John 18:21 So the band of soldiers and their chiliarchos and the [police] of the Jews arrested Jesus and bound him.”
Act 25:23 So on the next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp, and they entered the audience hall with the chiliarchos and the prominent men of the city. Then, at the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.
Revelation 6:15 …the kings of the earth and the great ones and the chiliarchos and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves”
Revelation 19:18 …eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of chiliarchos, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.”
Conclusion
Chiliarchos appears in the Septuagint, the Old Testament in Greek, over 20 times. Most are straightforward references to tribal heads or military commanders. In Zechariah, however, it is used to refer to the clans of Israel as a whole, rather than its primary representative or commander. The Roman influence in Judea arose only after the formation of the Septuagint, so it is important to not conflate its rigid imperial hierarchical imagination with the cavalier, generic implications of the word in the Hebrew Scriptures.
More G5506
Exodus 18:21 Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiliarchos, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
Numbers 1:6 These were the ones chosen from the congregation, the chiefs of their ancestral tribes, the chiliarchos of Israel.
Joshua 22:14 and with him ten chiefs, one from each of the tribal families of Israel, every one of them the head of a family among the chiliarchos of Israel.
1 Samuel 18:13 So Saul removed him from his presence and made [David] a chiliarchos. And he went out and came in before the people.
Zechariah 12:6 On that day I will make the chiliarchos of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.
