# G0405 - andrapodistes **Strong's:** [G0405](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g405/) · BLB lookup **Pronunciation:** an-drap-od-is-TACE **Part of speech:** masculine noun **Root:** from *andrapodizō*, "to reduce to slavery, sell as a captive", built on *andrapodon*, a person taken captive and sold **NT occurrences:** 1. Measured in the Strong's-tagged KJV (`kjv.json`): the only verse tagged G405 is [1 Timothy 1:10](/codex/1-timothy-1-10/), rendered "menstealers". ## Semantic range 1. **A kidnapper who sells people into slavery; a slave-dealer.** The word names the person who *makes* slaves out of free people, by capture or abduction, and trades them. It is formed from the ordinary Greek word for a captive sold off after a raid or a war. 2. **Translations** divide the same meaning between the act and the trade: KJV "menstealers", many modern versions "kidnappers", others "slave traders" or "enslavers". All four are the same person seen from different ends of the transaction. It does **not** mean a household master as such (Greek has *despotēs* and *kyrios* for that, the words Paul uses in the household codes). It names the supply side: the one who turns a free person into merchandise. ## Theological force ### It translates a capital crime of the Torah The list in [1 Timothy 1](/codex/1-timothy-1/) is introduced with "we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully" (1:8). The man-stealing it condemns is the one the Torah punishes with death: - **[Exodus 21:16](/codex/exodus-21-16/)**: "he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." The verb is *ganab* (H1589), measured in `kjv.json` as the same Strong's number as the Eighth Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal" ([Exodus 20:15](/codex/exodus-20-15/)). Man-stealing is theft of a person, and the possessor ("found in his hand") is as guilty as the seller. - **[Deuteronomy 24:7](/codex/deuteronomy-24-7/)**: the kidnapper who "maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him ... shall die", closing with the purge formula "thou shalt put evil away from among you". ### Its place in the list Read [1 Timothy 1:9-10](/codex/1-timothy-1-9-10/) beside [Exodus 20:12-16](/codex/exodus-20-12-16/) and the second half of the list runs in the order of the second table of the Decalogue: | 1 Timothy 1:9-10 (KJV) | Exodus 20 | |---|---| | murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers | 20:12, honour father and mother | | manslayers | 20:13, thou shalt not kill | | whoremongers (*pornoi*), them that defile themselves with mankind | 20:14, adultery | | **menstealers (*andrapodistai*)** | **20:15, thou shalt not steal** | | liars, perjured persons | 20:16, false witness | So *andrapodistēs* sits where theft sits, and the theft it names is the Torah's gravest form of it, the stealing of a person. ### Beside the sexually immoral In the same verse, *andrapodistai* stands next to *pornoi* ("whoremongers", G4205). That matters for a common objection: "Paul forbids sexual immorality and disciplines it ([1 Corinthians 5:11](/codex/1-corinthians-5-11/) uses the same word *pornos*), so why does he never forbid slavery?" The answer is in this list. The one form of slavery that is evil in itself, making a free person into property by abduction and sale, is placed in the same catalogue of lawlessness as sexual immorality. See [Why Didnt God Ban Slavery Objection Defeater](/codex/why-didnt-god-ban-slavery-objection-defeater/). ## Apologetic load 1. **The Atlantic trade stands condemned by name.** The transatlantic system was supplied by capture and sale and sustained by buying and holding the captured. [Exodus 21:16](/codex/exodus-21-16/) reaches the seller and the holder; [1 Timothy 1:10](/codex/1-timothy-1-10/) names the trader. See [Biblical Slavery Objection Defeater](/codex/biblical-slavery-objection-defeater/) and [Chattel Slavery vs Biblical Servitude](/codex/chattel-slavery-vs-biblical-servitude/). 2. **It answers "the Bible never condemns slavery".** It condemns the act that creates chattel slavery. What the Bible regulates rather than forbids are other arrangements (debt service, the war captive in place of death); see [Israelite Slavery Possession-vs-Ownership Defeater](/codex/israelite-slavery-possession-vs-ownership-defeater/). 3. **It exposed the proslavery reading in its own day.** A reader who owned people acquired through the trade was holding what [Exodus 21:16](/codex/exodus-21-16/) calls stolen persons. See [Christian Abolitionist Movement](/codex/christian-abolitionist-movement/). 4. **Honest limit.** The word does not by itself abolish every form of servitude, and a defense should not claim it does. Its force is narrower and sharper: the trade that built modern chattel slavery is listed among the things "contrary to sound doctrine" (1:10). ## Notable verses - [1 Timothy 1:9-10](/codex/1-timothy-1-9-10/), the only occurrence, in the vice list read against the Decalogue - [Exodus 21:16](/codex/exodus-21-16/), man-stealing a capital crime; the possessor liable - [Deuteronomy 24:7](/codex/deuteronomy-24-7/), the kidnapper who "maketh merchandise" of a brother shall die - [Exodus 20:15](/codex/exodus-20-15/), "Thou shalt not steal", the same Hebrew verb - [Revelation 18:13](/codex/revelation-18-13/), Babylon's cargo list ending in "slaves, and souls of men" ## See also ### Lexicon - [G1401 - doulos](/codex/g1401-doulos/), the slave or servant, the person the trade produces - [H5650 - ebed](/codex/h5650-ebed/), the Hebrew servant - [H1865 - deror](/codex/h1865-deror/), the proclaimed liberty of the jubilee ### Concepts and defeaters - [Biblical Slavery Objection Defeater](/codex/biblical-slavery-objection-defeater/) - [Why Didnt God Ban Slavery Objection Defeater](/codex/why-didnt-god-ban-slavery-objection-defeater/) - [Four Pillars of Chattel Slavery](/codex/four-pillars-of-chattel-slavery/) - [Chattel Slavery vs Biblical Servitude](/codex/chattel-slavery-vs-biblical-servitude/)