1. before, in the presence of — An improper preposition (with genitive) meaning 'before, in the presence of, in the sight of,' used extensively to denote being in the presence of God (Luke 1:15, 1:19, 12:6; Rev 1:4, 4:5, 8:2) or of people/authorities (Luke 1:17, 24:19; Acts 4:10, 6:5, 10:33). All 95 occurrences carry this single spatial/relational sense of 'face-to-face presence before someone,' with no distinct metaphorical or abstract submeaning. Multilingual evidence is uniform: Spanish 'delante/delante de,' Hindi 'सामने,' Arabic 'أَمامَ,' Korean '앞–에/앞–에서,' Swahili 'mbele ya/mbele yangu.' The single hapax in S67286 is morphologically and semantically identical to the main cluster. 95×
AR["أَمامَ","أَمَامَ","أَمَامَكَ"]·ben["সামনে"]·DE["vor"]·EN["before"]·FR["devant"]·heb["לְ-פְנֵי","לְ-פָנֶיךָ","לִפְנֵי","לִפְנֵיהֶם"]·HI["सामने"]·ID["di-hadapan"]·IT["enopion"]·jav["ing-ngarsanipun","sakngajengipun","wonten-ing-ngajeng","wonten-ngarsanipun"]·KO["앞-에","앞-에서","앞에서"]·PT["diante"]·RU["перед","перед-","пред"]·ES["delante","delante-de","delante-del"]·SW["mbele","mbele-ya","mbele-yake","mbele-yako","mbele-yangu","mbele-yao"]·TR["önümde","önünde"]·urd["اُن-کے-سامنے","سامنے"]
Senses
BDB / Lexicon Reference
ἐνώπ-ιος, ον, (ὤψ) facing, to the front, πρό τ᾽ ἐνώπια Refs 7th c.BC+face to face, LXX; ἄρτοι ἐ. shewbread, Refs; διαστολῶν γεγονυιῶν ὑμῖν καὶ ἐνοπίοις (sic) καὶ διὰ γραμμάτων in person, Refs 2nd c.BC+ __II neuter ἐνώπιον as adverb, face to face, Refs 3rd c.BC+; in person, Refs 2nd c.BC+: as preposition with genitive, NT+4th c.BC+. Regul. adverb -ίωςRefs