What Does Matthew 25:36 Mean?
Naked, and you clothed me; I was weak, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.
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
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.THE KEY
The person who is exposed, sick, or confined is not merely someone near Jesus; this verse presents that person as where Jesus is met.
THE MEANING
Need takes visible, bodily forms: exposure, illness, and confinement. Jesus is present in the person who needs covering, attention, or company, so care for that person becomes an encounter with him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that Jesus is found only in religious spaces, far from ordinary human vulnerability.
THE ROOT
ἐπεσκέψασθε
epeskepsasthe
GROWS FROM
ἐπισκεπ-
episkep-
To look upon attentively, inspect, or attend to; in this verse, to visit with care.
“Visited” carries more than arriving in someone’s presence: it means attending to that person. The Greek family also includes ἐπίσκεψις (episkepsis), meaning an attentive visit or inspection, making the act of seeing inseparable from giving attention.
ALSO GROWS
skeptomai: Look at, consider.
σκέπτομαι
This base verb gives “visited” the sense of turning one’s attention toward someone.
episkepsis: Attentive visit, inspection, or care.
ἐπίσκεψις
This related noun shows how looking upon someone can become sustained attention to their condition.
περιβάλλω
periballō
GROWS FROM
βαλλ- (ball-), with περί (peri, “around”)
βάλλω (ballō) means to throw or put; περί (peri) means around. Together, περιβάλλω means to put or throw around, and can mean clothe.
“clothed” in this verse is periballō. The verb pictures covering as something placed around a person. The clothing is concrete: what is exposed receives a covering.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: Throw, cast, or put.
βάλλω
It is the action at the heart of the verb: something is placed around the person.
peribolē: A covering or garment.
περιβολή
This related noun makes the surrounding layer explicit: clothing is a covering placed around someone.
φυλακή
phylakē
GROWS FROM
φυλακ- / φυλασσ- (phylak- / phylass-)
The word is related to φυλάσσω (phylassō), to guard or keep watch; φυλακή can mean a guard post or prison.
“Prison” names confinement, while its Greek word also carries the idea of guarding or keeping watch. In the verse, the confined person is not overlooked: someone comes to them.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: Guard, keep watch over.
φυλάσσω
It links the place of confinement with the act of watching over someone.
phylax: Guard or watcher.
φύλαξ
This related word makes the guarding sense within φυλακή easier to hear.
THE PATTERN
Care becomes visible by covering exposed need, attending to affliction, and drawing near to people who are confined.
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.Clean and unstained service before God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widowed in their being pressed, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.Remember those in bonds, as though bound with them, and those held in harm, as you yourselves also are in the body.THE THREAD
Clean and unstained service before God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widowed in their being pressed, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.Matthew’s “visited” and James’s “to visit” are forms of the same Greek verb, ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai), meaning to look upon attentively and attend to. James shows that this attention reaches people in affliction; Matthew places the same kind of attentive presence beside the sick and the imprisoned.
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