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Bible Dictionaries
Constrain, Constraint
Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words
or see COMPEL , No. 1.
primarily denotes "to employ force contray to nature and right, to compel by using force" (para, "alongside," intensive, biazo, "to force"), and is used only of "constraining" by intreaty, as the two going to Emmaus did to Christ, Luke 24:29; as Lydia did to Paul and his companions, Acts 16:15 .
"to hold together, confine, secure, to hold fast" (echo, "to have or hold"), "to constrain," is said (a) of the effect of the word of the Lord upon Paul, Acts 18:5 (AV, "was pressed in spirit," RV, "was constrained by the word"); of the effect of the love of Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:14; (b) of being taken with a disease, Matthew 4:24; Luke 4:38; Acts 28:8; with fear, Luke 8:37; (c) of thronging or holding in a person, Luke 8:45; being straitened, Luke 12:50; being in a strait betwixt two, Philippians 1:23; keeping a city in on every side, Luke 19:43; keeping a tight hold on a person, as the men who seized the Lord Jesus did, after bringing Him into the High Priest's house, Luke 22:63; (d) of stopping the ears in refusal to listen, Acts 7:57 . Luke uses the word nine times out of its twelve occurrences in the NT. See HOLD , KEEP , No. (1), PRESS, SICK (lie), STOP, STRAIT (be in a), TAKEN (be), THRONG.
Note: The verb echo, "to have," with ananke, "a necessity," is translated "I was constrained," in Jude 1:3 , RV (AV, "it was needful").akin to A, No. 1, "by force, unwillingly, by constraint," is used in 1 Peter 5:2 .
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Constrain, Constraint'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ved/c/constrain-constraint.html. 1940.
