A RANSOM — the price paid to release a slave, a captive or a debtor; from lyō, 'to loose.' It is the Greek Old Testament's word for the redemption-price of a life (Exodus 21:30) and for the half-shekel every Israelite paid 'as a lytron for his soul' (Exodus 30:12 — the very tax argued over at Matthew 17:24). ⚠ It appears in the Gospels exactly twice, in one saying: 'to give his life a lytron ANTI many' (Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45). The preposition matters and is often flattened — anti is the ordinary word for 'in place of, in exchange for,' and NWT's 'a ransom IN EXCHANGE FOR many' is the most exact reading on the shelf, against KJV/ASV's 'a ransom for many.' Paul intensifies it to antilytron, 'a corresponding ransom' (1 Timothy 2:6). ⚠ The word says a price was paid and does not say to whom — the question later theology spent centuries on. And 'many' (pollōn) is itself disputed: a limit, or the Semitic idiom for 'the great number, i.e. all.' → first discussed at Matt 20:28