Bible dictionaries

Bid

What Bible dictionaries say about “Bid”, one article after the other.

Easton’s Bible Dictionary & Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Bid - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

BID, v.t. pret. bid, or bade; pp. bid, bidden. [L. peto, to drive at, to attack, to ask, to desire, to beseech, anciently beto; impetus. Applied to the voice, it denotes utterance, a driving of sounds, which is applied to asking, prayer, and command. Class Bd.]

1. To ask; to request; to invite.

Go ye into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage. Math.22.

This sense is antiquated, but we have the same word from the Latin, in invite, [in and bid.]

2. To command; to order or direct.

And Peter answered him and said, Lord,if it be thou, bid me come to thee on the water. Mat 14.

3. To offer; to propose; as, to bid a price at an auction.

4. To proclaim; to make known by a public voice.

Our bans thrice bid.

5. To pronounce or declare; as, to bid a welcome.

6. To denounce, or threaten; as, to bid defiance.

7. To wish or pray.

Neither bid him good speed. 2 John 10.

To bid beads, is to pray with beads, as the Catholics; to distinguish each bead by a prayer.

Also, to charge parishioners to say a number of paternosters.

To bid fair, is to open or offer a good prospect; to appear fair.

BID or BID'DEN, pp. of bid. Invited; offered; commanded.

BID, n. An offer of a price; a word much used at auctions.

Matthew George Easton, Easton’s Bible Dictionary; Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)

The article in Easton + Webster 1828

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE 1915)

Variously signifying, according to six Hebrew and as many Greek originals:

(1) "to command" (Nu 14:10; Mt 1:24 the King James Version, prostasso);

(2) "to prescribe" or "order" (Joh 2:2);

(3) "to consecrate," and so rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) (Ze 1:7; compare 1Sa 16:5);

(4) eipon, "to say" or "tell" (Mt 16:12);

(5) "to call" i.e. "invite" (kaleo), conspicuously used in this sense in Christ's parables of the Marriage Feast (Mt 22:3- 9) and of the Great Supper (Lu 14:7-24);

(6) "to take leave of," appotasso (Lu 9:61).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia — James Orr, general editor and contributors; CrossWire SWORD module ISBE 2.2

The article in ISBE 1915