What Does Matthew 25:35 Mean?
For I hungered, and you gave me food; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:THE KEY
The verb translated “took me in” means “gathered me,” so welcoming the stranger is the act of gathering an outsider into the community.
THE MEANING
The hungry, thirsty, and stranger before you are places where the King is met now. Recognition takes bodily form here: food, drink, and welcome.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that honoring the King can be separated from the vulnerable people who need food, drink, and welcome.
THE ROOT
συνάγω
synagō
GROWS FROM
ἄγω (agō), in σύν + ἄγω
Ἄγω means to lead or bring; σύν means together. Together, συνάγω means to gather or bring together.
“gathered me in” in this verse is synagō. The word translated “took me in” carries the sense of gathering someone in. Its word family also gives Greek its word for an assembly, so the stranger’s welcome becomes an act of belonging.
ALSO GROWS
synagōgē: gathering, assembly; synagogue
συναγωγή
The related word for an assembly shows how gathering someone in turns a stranger into part of the gathered community.
eisagō: bring or lead in
εἰσάγω
This compound uses the same verb for bringing someone across a threshold, echoing the welcome expressed in the verse.
ξένος
xenos
GROWS FROM
ξεν-
xen-
A stranger, foreigner, or guest.
The same word family holds both the stranger and the guest. English can make “stranger” sound fixed outside; Greek also leaves open the relation created when that person is received.
ALSO GROWS
xenia: hospitality or guest-friendship
ξενία
This related word names the welcome that turns the stranger into a guest.
philoxenos: hospitable, welcoming strangers
φιλόξενος
Its parts express affection for the stranger, revealing welcome as a relationship rather than a transaction.
THE PATTERN
Recognition of God takes visible form in food, shelter, and welcome for people in need.
He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him bread and a cloak.Is it not to break your bread for the hungry, and to bring the wandering poor into your house? When you see the naked, cover him, and do not hide yourself from your own flesh.Whoever has the world's means of living, and gazes upon his brother in need, and shuts his inner parts away from him, how does the love of God remain in him?THE THREAD
Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.“Strangers” in both verses belongs to the Greek word family ξεν- (xen-), which includes the stranger and the guest. Matthew shows the King received as a stranger; Hebrews reveals that welcoming strangers can open onto an encounter the host does not expect.
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