The verb διω (dio) means to run away or take flight, or when used passively, to drive away, give chase or put to flight. It stems from the Proto-Indo-European root "deyh-", to chase, from which also stem words like the verb δινευω (dineuo), to whirl or spin around, and the adjective δειος (deinos), terrible or fearful; hence the dino- part of the word dinosaur (see below).

Though similar (seductively so to the pun-prone poets of Greek theatre), these words are not immediately related to the verb δεω  δεομαι (deo, deomai), to bind (from PIE "deh-", to bind), or the name Zeus or Dio(s), which comes from the PIE root "dyew-", meaning heaven.

In our article on the name Isaac we explain how the animal world is divided into plain-roaming toe-walkers (Esau) and home-dwelling flat-footers (Jacob). The toe-walkers (horses, camels, sheep, cows, deer, pigs, and so on) are by far the largest group. Their primary rule in life is to run toward what is liked and away from what is disliked. That requires a discernment based on one's own private tastes, which very quickly entices the creature to divide the world into good and evil, i.e. the preferred and familiar (run toward) versus whatever is unfamiliar and unpleasant (run away from). From this very large binary world-view also come the predators: all carnivores both cat-like (lions, tigers) and dog-like (bears, wolves). These fear-mongers are closely related to the fearful ruminants. They are basically one big ouroboric family.

Contrary to the toe-walkers, the flat-footers live in homes: mice, rabbits, beavers, squirrels and apes (trees are inverted "holes"; a tree that protrudes into the air is the same sort of thing as a cave that extends into a mountain; you can only get out and into the wider world via the mouth of the cave or the lower trunk of the tree). Flat-footers don't run toward the preferred and away from the not preferred, but always run home, which is communal (noun בית, beth, means both home and temple: you can't have a temple if creatures have no sense of a communal home, and that happens only when they stop running about either scared or desirous; see Ephesians 2:19-22, 1 Peter 2:5).

Home-living gives flat-footers a centralized and monotheistic worldview, a sense of community and a sense of mysticism: an inner mental reality that is separate from the outer world.

The command to have no fear is the most repeated command in the Bible, and it's the first command given by the Logos upon engaging humankind in Abraham (Genesis 15:5). This command to have no fear does not demand that we should ignore a perfectly useful alarm system, but rather that we organize our own life and our community in such a way that we have nothing to be afraid of: safe, well-stocked, well-governed and very well informed.

Our verb διω (dio), to flee, is not used in the New Testament, but all the following words on this page stem from it.

The verb διωκω (dioko) means to hound — to cause to take flight, to run off, to coercively drive — and often occurs in tandem with the verb φευγω (pheugo), to take flight. The first verb describes the outward imposition of will (either combined with something desired or something rejected) and the determined initiation of pursuit. The second verb describes having one's own will overwhelmed by the will of someone else, and since one's soul is closely associated with one's self-determination, the loss of one's executable will is like dying and becoming like a lifeless object that's driven along by wind or waves.

Our verb διωκω (dioko) is often used to describe a hunt, which indeed commonly ends in the death of the pursued. Another signature use of our verb is to describe how the wind drives a sailing ship: with a continuous and consistent pressure and the occasional gust and blow. Since the word for spirit is the same as for wind — namely πνευμα (pneuma) in Greek and רוח (ruah) in Hebrew — our verb διωκω (dioko) is a deeply spiritual word, which commonly describes the singular personality and behavior of crowds.

Our verb may describe how crowds pursue certain outstanding individuals (Luke 17:23), drive them from town to town (Matthew 23:34), or grab hold of them to deliver them to some specific place of disposal or processing (John 5:16). When Jesus asked Saul why he "drove" him (Acts 9:4), he implied that Saul was not the lonely hunter of folklore searching for hidden Christians, but instead captained a large contingent of minions (see Acts 9:7) that "drove" the believers in Christ from their hideouts and onto places where they normally wouldn't have gone (Acts 26:11).

Our verb primarily describes how crowds naturally identify, target and kill any element that does not seamlessly blend into the homogeneous personality of the crowd. This rejected element is killed by expulsion (Luke 11:49), and is driven off with a spiritual force that might resemble anything from a gently driving breeze to a scourging, howling storm. Not rarely will a crowd, like any predator, consume the bodily residue of whatever soul it expelled, and confiscate de-peopled properties the way a predator devours its de-souled prey. And of course, the nature and behavior of the hunting crowd, like that of any predator, will adapt according to the nature and behavior of its prey, so that the prey, involuntarily but inevitably, helps to form its hunter.

Crucially important, our verb does not mean to follow; it means to propel: to impose one's will on someone or something and make it do something it wouldn't have done on its own. The action that hunter and prey share derives from the will of the hunter, not from that of the prey. The will of the hunter is roused by the nature of the prey, not by the prey's desire, will or actions. In fact, the hunter might even hunt for something that isn't even substantialized yet, and so cause himself to change as if the prey had been substantial. Thus, people don't "follow" righteousness, as if righteousness were an externally existing entity that would lead the way (as polytheism maintains), but "drive" non-existing righteousness until its substance is assumed by the crowd (Romans 9:30-31). The same goes for kindness-to-strangers (Romans 12:13), the attributes of peace (Romans 14:9, Hebrews 12:14), love (1 Corinthians 14:1) and every other virtue (1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 2:22).

When Jesus blessed the "persecuted" (Matthew 5:10) he didn't speak of externally stored rewards that will surely someday find their way to the botched and bungled, but rather discusses the internal working principle of social evolution: when peers seek wisdom, peer pressure leads to greatness. Jesus is not an icon to be looked at from afar; he is the Logos, the Word of God, to be subsumed and absorbed by every person alive on earth (John 6:53-58). Being in Christ means mastery over nature (John 14:12), and that can only be obtained through many generations of diligence, study, discourse and corrective action.

Paul's lasting remorse certainly reminded him that he had hurt innocent people, but possibly in no less measure that he had forcibly driven people of freedom to where they had not chosen to go. As he himself later explained, people who know Christ are like precious living seeds who need FREEDOM to grow according to their own nature, toward the light of God. Hence, it is for FREEDOM that Christ sets his people free (Galatians 5:5), and that is a truth that many key players in many churches continue to not comprehend (1 Corinthians 15:9, Galatians 1:13).

Modern prophets of the Word of God proclaimed in vain for centuries that iron ships would float, that citrus cured scurvy, that unwashed hands killed women in childbirth, that unhealthy lifestyles caused cancer, that the entire universe is one and everything exists because of that unity and all activity is governed by that unity and that the only possible sustainable state of the universe and anything in it will always be unity; and they were hounded until the crowd had absorbed enough of them to have followed them into understanding (2 Timothy 3:12, Galatians 4:29).

Altogether our verb is used 44 times in the New Testament, see full concordance, and from it derive:

The verb δειδω (deido) means to fear and stems directly from the verb δεω (deo), to flee or put to flight (see above). In the classics this verb δειδω (deido) is usually followed by a clause involving περι (peri), about, to describe a fear round-about, an oppressive fear of something that encircles from all sides. This dreadful verb is not used in the New Testament but from it derive:

The pronoun δεινα (deina) means so-and-so or "that guy from the place with the thing". It's a curious and deliberately vague way of referring to someone one rather not mention or won't mention by merit of that person's utter irrelevance. In the classics this same pronoun was used as interjection to introduce a suddenly striking idea: "Oh, and by the way...!"

This word is used only once in the New Testament, namely in Matthew 26:18, where it points to the curiously unimportant proprietor of the room where Jesus instituted the enormously important rite of the Lord's Supper.