Greek word · G1523
εἰσδέχομαι
eisdechomai
to receive
To take in, admit, receive into a place; to welcome. Used only here in the New Testament.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
From the study of 2 Corinthians 6:17
- Range of meaning
To take in, admit, receive into a place; to welcome. Used only here in the New Testament.
- Against the English
English 'receive' or 'accept' can sound like approval granted after an inspection. Here it is gathering home: God brings scattered people back in.
- How it drifted
Read on its own, 'and I will receive you' can be heard as a condition for earning acceptance. That reading loses the source passage, where the welcome is God's restoring act toward exiles.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Ezekiel 20:34 (Greek): 'I will bring you out from the peoples and welcome you in from the lands where you were scattered'; also Ezekiel 11:17 and Zephaniah 3:20. Ezekiel 20:41 adds 'I will accept you as a pleasing aroma', which is temple language again.
Where it appears
2 Corinthians · 1
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2 Corinthians 6:17 εἰσδέξομαι will receive
“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
Here: Future: 'I will welcome you in.' Borrowed from Ezekiel 20:34 (Greek), where God promises to gather the scattered exiles out of the nations and bring them home. Those who leave Babylon are not left homeless; God takes them in.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.