to have received in full: to hold in hand the whole of what was owed, with nothing left outstanding
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In the marketplace of the ancient world this was the word stamped on a receipt: the sum is paid, the account is closed, nothing more is owed. That commercial edge is the whole point when Jesus says the show-offs who make a display of their giving, praying, and fasting "have received their reward in full." The crowd's admiration is the payment, handed over completely, and heaven owes them nothing further.
The same note of full settlement sounds in Paul's thank-you to the Philippians ("I have received everything in full") and in his plea that Philemon might have the runaway Onesimus back for good. Where the plain verb for receiving (λαμβάνω) simply says something came to hand, this word adds that it came in its entirety, the transaction complete.
Nuances
1ato have received one's reward in full, with nothing more to come
Mat 6:2Mat 6:5Mat 6:16Luk 6:24
1bto have or receive something in full; to have someone back for good
Php 4:18Phm 1:15
2
to be far off: to lie at a distance in space, or to be far away in heart
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
Here the word measures distance. Luke uses it plainly for how far one place is from another: the village of Emmaus lay about seven miles from Jerusalem, and in Matthew the boat in the storm was already far from land. It carries the same sense in the two tender scenes where a father, and a centurion's friends, see someone coming while he is "still a long way off."
The distance can also be a distance of the heart. When Jesus quotes Isaiah against the religious leaders, "this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me," the word names a gap not of miles but of loyalty and love. The Hebrew line he quotes uses רָחַק, the ordinary word for being far away, stretched in exactly this way.
Nuances
2ato be at a distance in space
Mat 14:24Luk 7:6Luk 15:20Luk 24:13
2bto be far away in heart or loyalty
Mat 15:8Mrk 7:6
3
to abstain: to hold oneself back and deliberately stay away from something
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
When the word turns back on the one acting, it means to keep oneself clear of something, to abstain. This is the language of the early church's guidance to new believers: stay away from food offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from every kind of evil. It pictures not merely avoiding a thing by accident but deliberately holding oneself at arm's length from it.
It is close to the idea of fleeing temptation, but with a steadier feel. To flee (φεύγω) is to run from a danger in the moment; to abstain in this sense is the ongoing discipline of keeping one's distance.
Act 15:20Act 15:291Th 4:31Th 5:221Ti 4:31Pe 2:11
4
it is enough: an abrupt exclamation whose exact force is uncertain
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested
At the end of Gethsemane, after Jesus twice finds the disciples asleep, he says a single word that most English Bibles render "It is enough." The sense seems to be that the time for sleep is over and the decisive hour has arrived: "Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners."
The difficulty is that this one word is used here in a way found nowhere else in the New Testament, and no one is certain exactly what it means. Some scholars hear the same note as the receipt idiom, as if to say "the account is settled." The reading is genuinely open, and it is one of the rare places where a translator is frankly guessing.
Mrk 14:41*
Mrk 14:41
What the lone word ἀπέχει means in Mark 14:41, where it appears in a way found nowhere else in the New Testament.
majorityAn impersonal exclamation, "it is enough": the time for sleep is over and the decisive hour has come.; BDAG, s.v. ἀπέχω
minorityA commercial idiom carried over from the receipt sense, "the account is settled" or "the reckoning is closed."; J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀπέχω
Stamps a payment or account as settled in full: to have received the whole amount with nothing still owing, so a reward or gift is "paid in full."Mat 6:2Mat 6:16Php 4:18Phm 1:15
Describes distance rather than receiving at all: to be far off, a long way away, whether of a place or of a heart turned from God.Mat 15:8Mrk 7:6Luk 7:6Luk 15:20Luk 24:13
Means to hold oneself back from something: to abstain from or keep clear of a practice.Act 15:291Th 4:31Ti 4:31Pe 2:11
Both
Both can name coming into possession of something that arrives to a person, so both are rendered "receive."Mat 6:2Php 4:18Mat 7:8Mat 10:8
The everyday verb for physically taking hold of something: picking it up, grasping it, or carrying it off.Mat 26:26Mat 25:1Mat 27:30
Joins with a noun to form set expressions, such as taking counsel together to form a plan against someone.Mat 12:14Mat 27:1Mat 27:7
κομίζωto receive back or be paid what one is due, often a recompense; it overlaps ἀπέχω's "receive in full" but leans toward getting back a return rather than settling an account.
Can simply mean to bring or carry an object to a place.Luk 7:37
Names getting back what was already one's own: recovering or being handed back something lost or lent.Heb 11:19Mat 25:27
Points to a reward still awaited, the promised recompense one will receive at the last, not yet in hand.Heb 10:36Heb 11:391Pe 1:9
φεύγωto flee, to run from a danger in the moment; ἀπέχω in its "abstain" sense is the steadier discipline of keeping one's distance rather than the sudden flight.
Carries the commercial sense of having or receiving something in full, with nothing left owing. This receipt meaning is entirely absent from the other word.Mat 6:2Luk 6:24Php 4:18
Describes a fixed gap in space, being at a distance or far off, as a settled state rather than any act of moving away.Mat 15:8Luk 7:6Luk 15:20
Both
Both appear in moral commands to keep clear of sin: one word tells the believer to hold back and abstain from it, the other to run away from it, but both put distance between the person and evil.1Th 4:31Pe 2:111Co 6:182Ti 2:22
ἀπέχω says the whole amount is already in hand and the account is closed, so nothing further is owed. When Jesus says the show-off givers, pray-ers and fasters "have" their reward, the word by itself means they have been paid the entire sum and no more is coming.Mat 6:2Mat 6:5Mat 6:16
It is the wording of a settled receipt: what was sent has arrived, been counted, and is now held in full. Paul writes that he has everything from the Philippians, describing the state of having it all rather than the moment of collecting it.Php 4:18
ἀπέχω also measures plain physical distance, how far one thing stands from another, with no thought of payment at all: a boat far out from land, a village sixty stadia from Jerusalem, a father's house not far off, a son still a long way away.Mat 14:24Luk 24:13Luk 7:6Luk 15:20
That distance can be inward as well as spatial, of people whose worship is close at the lips while the heart stays far away from God.Mat 15:8Mrk 7:6
When a person holds himself off from something, ἀπέχω is the ordinary word rendered "abstain": the Jerusalem letter tells believers to keep clear of what has been offered to idols, and Peter urges keeping clear of the cravings that war against the soul.Act 15:20Act 15:291Th 4:31Th 5:221Ti 4:31Pe 2:11
It can stand alone with nothing named as received, simply declaring a matter finished. In Gethsemane the single word amounts to "that is enough", the reckoning closed and the hour arrived.Mrk 14:41
Both
Both belong to the language of wages and accounts: each describes a reward or recompense reaching a person as what was owed, not as an unexpected gift.Mat 6:22Jn 1:8Col 3:24
Both can take a person rather than a payment as what comes back, of having someone again who had been away: Philemon is to have Onesimus back for good, and the father in the story has his son back safe and sound.Phm 1:15Luk 15:27
Both are used to say that the comfortable have already collected their good things in this life, leaving no further claim outstanding: woe to the rich, who already have their comfort, and Abraham tells the rich man he received his good things while he lived.Luk 6:24Luk 16:25
ἀπολαμβάνω names the receiving itself rather than the finished total, so when the fullness of the payment matters the text has to say so: John wants his readers to receive "a full reward", where ἀπέχω would carry "in full" in the word alone.2Jn 1:8
It regularly looks ahead to what God has promised but has not yet handed over: the standing of sons still to be received, the inheritance that will come from the Lord as a servant's wages, and the many times more waiting for those who leave everything behind.Gal 4:5Col 3:24Luk 18:30
It covers getting back what a person's own conduct has earned, punishment included: the dying criminal says he and his fellow are getting what their deeds deserve, and Paul speaks of men receiving in themselves the penalty their straying earned.Luk 23:41Rom 1:27
It can also mean simply to take someone aside, drawing a person away from the crowd, with nothing owed or paid in view.Mrk 7:33
apechō in the other biblical languages
רָחַקHebrew“to remove”the ordinary Hebrew word for being far away, used both of physical distance and of a heart far from God; it stands behind the Isaiah quotation that ἀπέχω renders in the Gospels.
Carries a commercial sense the Hebrew word never has: to receive something in full, as a debt settled or a reward collected once and for all. The hypocrites who pray to be admired already "have" their reward in full, and Paul says he "has" the Philippians' gift paid in full.Mat 6:2Luk 6:24Php 4:18
Both
Both name spatial distance, being or staying far off. When the New Testament quotes Isaiah's charge that the people honor God with their lips while their heart stays "far" from him, the Greek word renders the Hebrew one directly.Mat 15:8Isa 29:13
Both stretch distance into moral avoidance, keeping oneself far from what is wrong. Paul tells believers to stay away from every kind of evil, much as the law tells Israel to keep far from a false charge.1Th 5:22Exo 23:7
Works as an active removal, not only a state of being far: it can put or drive something far away. God "removes" transgressions as far as the east is from the west, and he sends a people off into distant exile among the nations.Psa 103:12Ezk 11:16Isa 6:12
Measures plain, everyday distance with no religious weight at all: how many miles a village lies from the city, a boat already far from land, a son still a long way off down the road.Luk 24:13Mat 14:24Luk 15:20
Doubles as a settlement word from the marketplace: what was owed has been handed over in full and nothing more is coming, which is the sting in the warning that people who parade their giving already "have received their reward in full."Mat 6:2Php 4:18
When it does mean to hold off from something, the verb itself says only that much. It names the thing to stay clear of and nothing about whom the person now belongs to, so any note of holiness has to come from the surrounding words.Act 15:201Th 5:221Pe 2:11
What it tells a person to stay clear of is always harmful: meat handled in idol worship, sexual immorality, every appearance of evil, the cravings that war against the soul.1Th 4:31Ti 4:31Pe 2:11
Both
Both describe a person deliberately holding back from something within reach, and English Bibles commonly render each of them "abstain," which is why readers meet them as the same idea.Num 6:3Act 15:29
In both, the holding back is an ongoing stance rather than a single act: a vow kept for the whole of its stated time, and a standing instruction to believers about how to live.Num 6:51Pe 2:11
Either word can put the distance between a person and God rather than between a person and a thing, one for someone who breaks away from following him, the other for a people whose heart stays far from him while their lips honor him.Ezk 14:7Mat 15:8
Never neutral: every place it occurs has the LORD, his dwelling place, or a rival god in view, so the boundary it draws is a religious one and the word carries that with it.Num 6:2Lev 15:31
Says the positive side of the boundary as well as the negative one. A person who takes the Nazirite vow is set apart to the LORD, and the going without wine, without cutting the hair, and without touching a dead body is how that dedication is carried out.Num 6:2Num 6:5Num 6:6
Because the word is about devotion rather than mere avoidance, it can describe devotion handed to the wrong god: Israel gave itself over to the shameful thing at Baal-peor.Hos 9:10
What a person holds off from can itself be holy rather than sinful, as when priests must keep back from the sacred offerings so that handling them in the wrong state will not profane them.Lev 22:2
Covers going without as an act of worship in its own right, with nothing forbidden involved: the fasting and mourning Israel had kept up for seventy years.Zec 7:3
What scholars say about apechō
ἀπέχω is a compound of ἀπό and ἔχω whose senses divide by voice and construction. In the active it is both transitive ("to have in full, receive in full") and intransitive ("to be distant"); in the middle, governing a genitive of separation, it means "to abstain from." The transitive sense is the well-attested commercial idiom of the documentary papyri, where ἀπέχω functions as a technical receipt formula ("paid in full"), established by Deissmann and by Moulton-Milligan; this is what gives Matthew 6:2, 5, 16 their ironic force (BDAG; TDNT, Hanse, s.v. ἔχω κτλ.). The intransitive distance sense underlies both literal usage (Luke 24:13; 7:6; 15:20) and the figurative "heart far from me" of the Isaiah 29:13 citation (Matthew 15:8;Mark 7:6). The impersonal ἀπέχει of Mark 14:41 is a recognized crux with no New Testament parallel; renderings range from the traditional "it is enough" (BDAG) to a revival of the commercial "the account is settled" (Moulton-Milligan).
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἀπέχωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἀπέχωlexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀπέχωreference
A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 4th ed.monograph