TOKEN

to'-k'-n ('oth, usually rendered "sign" (on Deuteronomy 22:14 ff see the comms.)): "Sign" and "token" are virtually synonymous words and in the King James Version are used with little or no distinction (in Exodus 13, compare Exodus 13:9 and Exodus 16). If there is any difference, "token" is perhaps more concrete and palpable than "sign," but this difference cannot be stressed. The modern use of "token," however, as a "memorial of something past" found in Numbers 17:10; Joshua 2:12. the Revised Version (British and American) has substituted sign in Exodus 13:16; Psalms 135:9; Isaiah 44:25, and the American Standard Revised Version has "evidence" in Job 21:29 (a needlessly prosaic change). The four New Testament examples, Mark 14:44; Philippians 1:28; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; 3:17 (each for a different Greek word) are self-explanatory.

See SIGN .

Burton Scott Easton

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.