What Does Matthew 25:43 Mean?
I was a stranger, and you did not gather me in; naked, and you did not clothe me; weak, and in prison, and you did not visit 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
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.THE KEY
The King is present at the threshold where the stranger is either gathered in or left outside.
THE MEANING
The verse places the reader before the King wherever need is present: the stranger is left outside, the naked person remains uncovered, and the sick and imprisoned go unattended. What is withheld from them is withheld from him. These ordinary acts of welcome and care are part of the encounter with the King.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The King can be honored while people who need welcome, clothing, and care are excluded.
THE ROOT
ξένος
xenos
GROWS FROM
ξεν
xen
Stranger, foreigner, or guest
Xenos can name both an outsider and a guest. The same word family includes receiving someone as a guest, so the stranger’s status is not fixed: welcome can make the outsider a guest, and the verse identifies that person with the King.
ALSO GROWS
xenizō: Receive or entertain as a guest
ξενίζω
The same word family names the act of welcoming the stranger.
philoxenia: Hospitality toward strangers
φιλοξενία
Hospitality carries the stranger’s name within it; welcome is the response built into the word.
συνήγαγέτέ
synēgagete
GROWS FROM
συνάγω
synagō
Bring together, gather, or assemble
“did not gather me in” in this verse is synēgagete. The verb translated “took me in” is synagō, to gather or bring together. Its noun συναγωγή (synagōgē) is an assembly or gathering, so the verse frames welcome as gathering the stranger into company; refusal leaves the person outside the circle.
ALSO GROWS
synagōgē: Assembly or gathering
συναγωγή
This noun from the same family shows that synagō can mean bringing people together into a gathered community.
episynagōgē: Gathering together or assembly
ἐπισυναγωγή
The same gather-together family makes the action concrete: the stranger is either brought into the company or left out.
ἐπεσκέψασθε
epeskepsasthe
GROWS FROM
σκοπ
skop
Look at, observe, or attend to
“visited” in this verse is epeskepsasthe. The verb ἐπισκέπτομαι (episkeptomai), translated “visit,” carries the sense of looking upon someone and attending to them. The word family joins notice with care: leaving the sick and imprisoned unvisited is leaving their condition unattended.
ALSO GROWS
skopeō: Look at carefully or take heed
σκοπέω
The shared stem centers the action on directing attention toward someone or something.
episkopos: Overseer, one who watches over
ἐπίσκοπος
The same word family links looking with responsibility for what is seen.
THE PATTERN
A person’s treatment of the vulnerable is measured through concrete welcome and care.
He executes judgment for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him bread and a cloak.The sojourner does not spend the night in the open; my doors I open to the wayfarer.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.THE THREAD
Do not let slip the opening of your home to strangers, for by it some have sheltered messengers without knowing it.Hebrews uses the same xenos word family: strangers are people to be entertained as guests. Matthew makes that welcome a direct encounter with the King, the stranger received is not separate from him.
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