THE FULL ARTICLE — from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), general editor James Orr — public domain, printed whole.

im'-po-tent (astheneo, adunatos): The verb signifies "to be without strength," and derivatives of it are used in Joh 5:3,7 the King James Version and Ac 4:9 to characterize the paralyzed man at Bethesda and the cripple at the Temple gate. For the same condition of the Lystra lame man the word adunatos is used, which is synonymous. In these cases it is the weakness of disease. In this sense the word is used by Shakespeare (Love's Labor Lost, V, ii, 864; Hamlet, I, ii, 29). The impotent folk referred to in the Epistle of Jeremy (Baruch 6:28) were those weak and feeble from age and want; compare "impotent and snail-paced beggary" (Richard III, IV, iii, 53).

Alexander Macalister