Men-Stealers
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament [1]
The word occurs only once in the NT-in the First Epistle to Timothy ( 1 Timothy 1:10), where the writer includes the term in his list of those for whom the Law is intended. ‘A law is not intended for a righteous man but for the lawless and unruly … for men-stealers (ἀνδραποδισταῖς, plagiariis [Vulg.[Note: Vulgate.]]).’ That kidnapping was regarded as a serious offence by the Hebrews is clear from the definite statements in Exodus 21:16 (‘and he that stealeth a man … he shall surely be put to death’) and in Deuteronomy 24:7 (‘if a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel … then that thief shall die’). By the time of this Epistle, however, the term had less special colour and could describe that subtler form of man-stealing by which one man is made the victim of another’s will and the instrument of his selfishness.
R. Strong.
Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words [2]
"a slave dealer, kidnapper," from andrapodon, "a slave captured in war," a word found in the plural in the papyri, e.g., in a catalogue of property and in combination with tetrapoda, "four-footed things" (andrapodon, aner, "a man," pous, "a foot"); andrapodon "was never an ordinary word for slave; it was too brutally obvious a reminder of the principle which made quadruped and human chattels differ only in the number of their legs" (Moulton and Milligan, Vocab.). The verb andrapodizo supplied the noun "with the like odious meaning," which appears in 1—Timothy 1:10 .
