Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words is a classic work. Many have recognized it as very valuable in the past, but modern Greek scholars have some problems with it now-a-days. The problem comes in when one presumes that the formation of a word controls its meaning forever. That is just not so. As languages are fluid, people begin using words with a different meaning from what the root parts of the word are. So the actual meaning of a word in real time use today maybe different from what the word’s roots meant when it was first introduced into the language.

The English word “prevent” meant originally to go before. That is the meaning in the KJV (being closer to the time when the word was first introduced into the language). Today the word means to stop something from happening.

1 Thessalonians 4:15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

T.R. Simmons A Systematic Study of Bible Doctrine is a Bible Doctrines book of 43 chapters. The author is (according to the Introduction) "systematic, Calvinistic, Baptist, and premillennial". I am offering this work in various formats:
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So as you can see, the correct understanding of this word “prevent” is to go before something else. But in our modern day meaning, the word means something else. So take care when dealing with the origins of words in the Bible. — David Cox

More from this Category

• Word Studies in Old Testament, New Testament
• Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words
• King James Dictionary
• Wuest Dictionary