Five-minute study · Day 304 · Luke 23
Luke 23:43
A word worth stopping on: paradise παράδεισος paradeisos
'And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.' Two criminals hung on crosses beside Jesus. One mocked him. The other made a request that still stuns: 'Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.' Jesus answered with a word borrowed from Persia. Paradeisos. A walled garden. An enclosed space of beauty and safety. The word entered Greek from the Old Persian pairidaeza, a compound of pairi (around) and daeza (wall). A paradise was a royal garden, walled off from the dust and noise outside. The Septuagint used paradeisos to translate the Hebrew gan in Genesis 2:8: the Garden of Eden. When Jesus promised the dying thief a paradise, the word carried Eden's memory. A garden. A wall. Everything dangerous locked outside.
Word study: paradise
- Greek
- παράδεισος
- Pronounced
- paradeisos
- Strong's
- G3857
- Definition
- A park, a garden, an enclosed area of beauty and delight. Originally a Persian loanword for a walled royal garden or game preserve. Used in the Septuagint for the Garden of Eden and in the New Testament for the abode of the blessed.
Paradeisos appears 3 times in the New Testament: Luke 23:43, 2 Corinthians 12:4 (Paul caught up to paradeisos), and Revelation 2:7 ('the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God'). BDAG traces the word from Old Persian pairidaeza (an enclosure, a walled park) through its adoption into Greek via Xenophon, who used it to describe the gardens and game preserves of Persian kings. Xenophon's Anabasis (early 4th century BC) introduced Greek readers to the concept: vast, cultivated enclosures where the Persian nobility hunted, walked, and displayed their wealth.
The Septuagint translators chose paradeisos for the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8, 3:1-24), and the word absorbed the theological weight of the creation narrative. Eden was the place where God walked with humanity in the cool of the day (Genesis 3:8). The loss of Eden was the loss of unmediated presence. The prophets anticipated restoration: Ezekiel 36:35 promises: 'This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden.' Isaiah 51:3 declares that God 'will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD.'
Green's commentary on Luke (NICNT) examines Luke 23:43 within the crucifixion narrative. The exchange between Jesus and the penitent thief is unique to Luke's Gospel. Green notes the theological weight of 'today' (semeron). The thief asked to be remembered in the future: 'when thou comest into thy kingdom.' Jesus answered in the present tense: 'today.' The paradise was immediate. Green observes that Luke uses semeron as a marker of salvation's arrival throughout the Gospel (2:11, 'unto you is born this day'; 4:21, 'this day is this scripture fulfilled'; 19:9, 'this day is salvation come to this house'). The promise to the thief follows the same pattern. The paradise is a walled garden, and the gate opened that afternoon.
Historical context · 6th-4th century BC (Achaemenid Persian Empire), with roots extending earlier
Persian Royal Gardens and the Concept of Paradise
The Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550-330 BC) developed garden design into a political and spiritual art form. The pairi-daeza (walled enclosure) was a feature of royal residences from Pasargadae to Persepolis to Susa. Archaeological excavations at Pasargadae, the capital of Cyrus the Great, have uncovered the remains of a formal garden with stone watercourses, rectangular planting beds, and a pavilion. The garden was organized around water: channels divided the space into quadrants, a design that influenced garden architecture for millennia (the Islamic chaharbagh, or 'four-garden,' descends from this pattern).
Xenophon, the Greek soldier and historian who served with the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger around 401 BC, introduced the word paradeisos to the Greek-speaking world. In his Oeconomicus, Xenophon describes the Spartan general Lysander visiting the garden of Cyrus the Younger at Sardis. Cyrus told Lysander that he had personally planned and planted some of the trees. The garden was a display of royal power and cultivation.
When the Jewish translators in Alexandria produced the Septuagint (3rd-2nd century BC), they chose paradeisos for the Garden of Eden. The choice was culturally resonant. Their Greek-speaking audience knew what a paradeisos was: an enclosed garden, royal, protected, abundant. By the first century, the word had moved from horticulture to theology. In Jewish apocalyptic literature, paradise became a designation for the place of the righteous after death (see 1 Enoch, 2 Esdras). Jesus, speaking to a dying man on a Roman cross, used a Persian word filtered through Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture to promise safety, presence, and restoration.
For reflection
The thief had no time to fix his life. No baptism, no good works, no religious training. He had a single sentence: 'Remember me.' What does his story reveal about the minimum requirement for rescue?
Pay attention to what the thief did and did not have.
Sources: BDAG; Green, 'The Gospel of Luke' (NICNT)