CONCUPISCENCE.Concupiscence is intense desire, always in a bad sense, so that it is unnecessary to say evil concupiscence as in Col_3:5. The reference is nearly always to sexual lust.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
kon-kū?pi-sens (ἐπιθυμία, epithumı́a): Not used in the Revised Version (British and American), but in the King James Version, Rom_7:8; Col_3:5; 1Th_4:5. The Greek noun, like the verb from which it comes, meaning ?to yearn,? ?to long,? ?to have the heart set upon a thing,? is determined in its moral quality by the source whence it springs or the object toward which it is directed. Thus, our Lord uses it to express the intensest desire of His soul (Luk_22:15). As a rule, when the object is not expressed, it refers to longing for that which God has forbidden, namely, lust. It is not limited to sexual desire, but includes all going forth of heart and will toward what God would not have us to have or be, as its use in the Septuagint of the Ten Commandments clearly shows, for ?Thou shalt not covet? (Exo_20:17).
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Concupiscence
(Lat. concupiscentia), evil desire (ἐπιθυμία, Rom_7:8; ἐπιθυμία κακή, Col_3:5); generally used in the sense of indwelling sin. The term is especially used in Roman Catholic theology. For its import there, and the controversy concerning it, SEE SIN.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.