A disturbance
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The Greek noun thorybos names noise, uproar, tumult, or public disturbance. In the Gospels, leaders delay arresting Jesus because they fear a riot, Pilate sees a riot beginning while a crowd demands crucifixion, and mourners create commotion at Jairus's house.
Reader summary
Full entry for θόρυβος (G2351) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek noun thorybos names noise, uproar, tumult, or public disturbance. In the Gospels, leaders delay arresting Jesus because they fear a riot, Pilate sees a riot beginning while a crowd demands crucifixion, and mourners create commotion at Jairus's house.
The BSB source-word alignment has 7 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a riot (3), uproar (2), [the] commotion (1), an uproar (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 26:5. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (3), Mark (2), Matthew (2).
The Greek noun thorybos names noise, uproar, tumult, or public disturbance. In the Gospels, leaders delay arresting Jesus because they fear a riot, Pilate sees a riot beginning while a crowd demands crucifixion, and mourners create commotion at Jairus's house. Acts uses the noun after the Ephesian uproar, amid conflicting reports around Paul's arrest in Jerusalem, and when Paul denies that he entered the temple with a crowd or disturbance.
These scenes distinguish ordinary grief noise, manipulated crowds, civic disorder, and accusations about unrest. Thorybos does not mean that every protest, loud gathering, disagreement, or emotional response is sinful. Nor does public quiet prove justice. Authorities and leaders may fear disorder for self-protective reasons, use crowd pressure, or misdescribe an event.
Responsible teaching seeks evidence, protects people from mob violence, listens to grief, distinguishes peaceful assembly from harmful tumult, and refuses to use order language to suppress truthful complaint or excuse official wrongdoing.
Thorybos names commotion among mourners, feared or actual crowd uproar around Jesus, and civic disturbance or disputed allegations in Acts, requiring evidence about actors, harm, and authority.
When they arrived at the house of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw the commotion and the people weeping and wailing loudly.
Jesus encounters commotion, weeping, and loud wailing at Jairus's house in a scene of death and grief.
“But not during the feast,” they said, “or there may be a riot among the people.”
Religious leaders plan to avoid arresting Jesus during the feast because they fear an uproar among the people.
When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead a riot was breaking out, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “You bear the responsibility.”
Pilate sees that a riot is beginning and yields to the crowd while publicly denying responsibility.
When the uproar had ended, Paul sent for the disciples. And after encouraging them, he said goodbye to them and left for Macedonia.
After the Ephesian uproar ceases, Paul encourages the disciples and continues his journey.
Some in the crowd were shouting one thing, and some another. And since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be brought into the barracks.
Conflicting shouts prevent the commander from learning the truth, so Paul is taken into the barracks.
At the time they found me in the temple, I was ceremonially clean and was not inciting a crowd or an uproar. But there are some Jews from the province of Asia
Paul says he was found purified in the temple without a crowd or disturbance, answering charges before Felix.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Loud commotion from excited crowds or mourners; emphasizes the audible, visible chaos of agitated masses
Loud commotion from excited crowds or mourners; emphasizes the audible, visible chaos of agitated masses
a noise, uproar, tumult, as of an excited mob: Mat.26:5 27:24, Mrk.14:2, Act.20:1 21:34 24:18; of mourners, = ὄχλος θορυβούμενος, Mrk.5:38.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
7 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
confused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseconfused noise, riot, disturbance
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
θόρυβος is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Thorybos directs attention to public conditions where noise and pressure can obscure truth. At Jairus's house, commotion belongs to death and mourning; readers should not treat grief expression as disorder requiring shame. In the passion narratives, leaders calculate around feared uproar and Pilate yields as a riot begins, illustrating how public pressure and self-protective authority can converge in injustice.
Acts reports a genuine Ephesian disturbance, then later shows conflicting shouts preventing a commander from learning why Paul was seized. Paul eventually states that he had no crowd or disturbance in the temple. The noun can describe real tumult or an allegation disproved by evidence. Faithful application therefore requires patient fact-finding, proportionate safety measures, protection from mobs, and accountability for authorities and organizers alike.
It must distinguish peaceful assembly, emotional grief, loud but lawful speech, confused crowds, and violent disorder. Christians should neither romanticize crowds nor make social quiet the highest good. Truth, justice, neighbor protection, and lawful process matter more than preserving appearances or silencing complaint.
Acts.21.34
Thorybos is a masculine Greek noun for noise, commotion, tumult, or uproar, especially from a crowd. Narrative context indicates whether it describes mourning, feared unrest, an actual riot, or a disputed accusation of public disturbance.
Biblical law, wisdom, prophets, and narratives likewise address false witness, mob pressure, mourning, public justice, and rulers' responsibility. Those themes inform application without making every Hebrew crowd or noise term a lexical equivalent of thorybos.