Occupy

Occupy - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

OC'CUPY, v.t. [L. occupo; ob and capio, to seize or take.]

1. To take possession. The person who first occupies land which has no owner, has the right of property.

2. To keep in possession; to possess; to hold or keep for use. The tenant occupies a farm under a lease of twenty one years. A lodger occupies an apartment; a man occupies the chair in which he sits.

3. To take up; to possess; to cover or fill. The camp occupies five acres of ground. Air may be so rarefied as to occupy a vast space. The writing occupies a sheet of paper, or it occupies five lines only.

4. To employ; to use.

The archbishop may have occasion to occupy more chaplains than six.

5. To employ; to busy one's self. Every man should be occupied, or should occupy himself, in some useful labor.

6. To follow, as business.

All the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise. Ezek 27.

7. To use; to expend.

All the gold that was occupied for the work - Exo 38. [Not now in use.]

OC'CUPY, v.i. To follow business; to negotiate.

Occupy till I come. Luke 19.

ok'-u-pi: Is in the King James Version the translation of 7 different words:

(1) nathan;

(2) cachar;

(3) `arabh;

(4) `asah, either with or without the added word, mela'khah;

(5) anapleroun;

(6) peripatein;

(7) pragmateuein.

In almost every case the meanings of "to occupy" as used in the King James Version in harmony with the common usage of the time have become obsolete.

(1) In Eze 27:16,19,22, nathan meant "to trade," and the Revised Version (British and American) reads "traded."

(2) From cachar, "to go about," was derived a designation of "merchants" (Revised Version) (Eze 27:21).

(3) `Arabh (Eze 27:9) signifies "to exchange" (the English Revised Version and the American Revised Version margin, but the American Standard Revised Version "deal in").

(4) `asah (Ex 38:24) means simply "to use" (Revised Version), and the same word in Jud 16:11, with mela'khah ("work") added, signifies that work had been done (Revised Version).

(5) In 1Co 14:16, "occupy," the King James Version rendering of anapleroun, would still be as intelligible to most as the Revised Version (British and American) "fill."

(6) "Occupy" in Heb 13:9, in the sense of "being taken up with a thing," is the translation (both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American)) of peripatein, literally, "to walk." Finally

(7) pragmateuein (Lu 19:13) is rendered in the King James Version "occupy" in its obsolete sense of "trade" (Revised Version).

David Foster Estes