to receive what is coming to you: to get back what was yours, or be handed what your work has earned or a promise has set aside for you
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This is the ordinary verb for taking or receiving (λαμβάνω) with a small prefix that adds the idea of "from" or "back". The result is a word for getting hold of something that was already headed your way. What arrives is not a windfall: the loan, the runaway child, the wage, the inheritance, each already had the receiver's name on it.
That one idea covers situations that look quite different on the surface:
getting back a person you had lost, as when a father has his son home again
collecting what you lent out, as when money goes out in hope of the same sum returning
being handed what your own conduct has earned, whether that is pay or punishment
taking possession at last of what was promised to you
The verb passes no judgment of its own on whether the return is welcome. It carries a full reward for faithful work in one verse and a fitting penalty in another. What it always insists on is the match between what a person did, lent, or was promised and what finally lands in their hands. When a writer wants to stress instead that the whole sum is already settled and in hand, Greek reaches for a different verb, "to have in full" (ἀπέχω).
Nuances
1agetting back what was yours: a person or a sum you had and then lost or lent out
TranslatabilityDirect
Luk 6:34Luk 15:27
1bbeing handed what your own actions have earned, whether the return is a reward or a punishment
Luk 18:30*Luk 23:41Rom 1:27Col 3:24*2Jn 1:8
1ctaking possession at last of what was promised to you or set aside as your share
Luk 16:25*Gal 4:5
2
to take someone aside, drawing them away from a crowd for a private moment
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintyStrong
Greek can turn this verb so that the action bends back on the person doing it, and in that form the prefix reads as separation rather than return: instead of getting something back, you are taking someone off to one side. The only place in the New Testament that plainly uses it this way is the healing of a deaf man, where Jesus draws him away from the crowd before touching his ears and his tongue.
Because this happens just once, the sense leans on how the verb behaves in Greek outside the Bible, where it is well attested for pulling a person or a group apart from the rest. Greek has a near neighbour meaning "to take someone to yourself" (προσλαμβάνω), the word used when Peter pulls Jesus aside to rebuke him.
Carries the sense of being owed inside the word itself, so it can state that what a person gets is exactly what was coming to them: the criminal beside Jesus says the two of them are getting what their deeds deserve, and Paul writes of the payback that was due for going against nature.Luk 23:41Rom 1:27
Used of collecting on something already pledged, so the receiving closes out a promise rather than starting something new: the standing of sons that redemption was aimed at, the settlement that goes with the inheritance, and the full wage the faithful worker is warned not to forfeit.Gal 4:5Col 3:242Jn 1:8
Says that what comes is coming BACK, either restored to the one who had it or already drawn in full: the father gets his son back alive and well, and Abraham tells the rich man he had his good things during his lifetime and they are spent.Luk 15:27Luk 16:25
Of a person, means to draw someone away from the group for private attention: Jesus takes the deaf man aside, out of the crowd, before touching his ears and tongue.Mrk 7:33
Both
Both describe a person coming into a payment or reward, and λαμβάνω covers that ground perfectly well whenever the setting already supplies the debt: the vineyard workers get the day's wage they had agreed on, just as ἀπολαμβάνω speaks of getting a full wage.Mat 20:92Jn 1:8
One sentence in Jesus' teaching on lending uses both, and the difference shows plainly: sinners lend to people they hope to get something from, so that they will get the same amount back.Luk 6:34
English versions usually render both as "receive," so the note of settling an account that ἀπολαμβάνω supplies is easy to miss: "you received your good things" and "everyone who asks receives" read the same in English while the Greek words differ.Luk 16:25Mat 7:8
Covers plain physical taking hold of an object where nothing at all is owed: Jesus picks up the bread at the last meal, and Pilate takes water to rinse his hands in front of the crowd.Mat 26:26Mat 27:24
Is the word for taking a free gift, where the whole point is that the receiver had no claim on it: the disciples are told they got their powers for nothing and must give them away for nothing, and everyone who simply asks gets.Mat 10:8Mat 7:8
Can be hostile seizing, taking what belongs to someone else or grabbing a person to do them harm: the man in court who wants your shirt, the tenants who seize the owner's servants and beat them, and the soldiers who take up the reed to hit Jesus with it.Mat 5:40Mat 21:35Mat 27:30
Reaches inward acceptance, a person taking something on as his own: the shallow hearer who welcomes the message gladly, and the follower who must take up his own cross.Mat 13:20Mat 10:38
ἀπέχωto have the whole of something already in hand, the wording of a settled account, looking at the finished total rather than the act of collecting
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
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
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
κομίζωthe other word for collecting the wages of your own conduct, used of good and bad returns alike
Can be about taking a person rather than taking a payment: Jesus draws the deaf man aside, away from the crowd, before healing him.Mrk 7:33
Often pins the collecting to this present life, and says so out loud: the rich man had already had his good things while he was alive, and the disciple who leaves everything gets many times more "in this present time".Luk 16:25Luk 18:30
Both
Both are ordinary words for collecting the payoff of your own conduct, good or bad, and Paul uses one then the other a single verse apart: the faithful worker will be paid his inheritance, while the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he did.Col 3:24Luk 23:41Col 3:252Co 5:10
Both are used for getting a person back whom you had lost: the father gets his son back safe and well, and Abraham gets Isaac back from the edge of death.Luk 15:27Heb 11:19
Both cover money returning to whoever it belongs to: what is lent comes back in the same amount, and the buried silver should have come back with interest.Luk 6:34Mat 25:27
Both are used for finally taking hold of what God has promised, so this is not only the language of wages earned: being made his sons, a reward in full, the promise itself, the crown of glory.Gal 4:52Jn 1:8Heb 10:361Pe 5:4
Keeps the plain everyday sense of carrying something somewhere, with no payment or return in view: the woman brings in her jar of perfume.Luk 7:37
When it speaks of payment, what comes back can be the conduct itself rather than a separate wage: the wrongdoer is paid back the wrong he did, each person gets back what was done through the body, and whatever good someone does is the very thing he receives.Col 3:252Co 5:10Eph 6:8
δέχομαιto welcome or accept what is offered, a guest or a message, about openness rather than entitlement
Used for collecting what a person's own conduct has earned, whether pay or payback, so it carries the idea of a settled account rather than a favor.Luk 23:41Rom 1:27Col 3:242Jn 1:8
Used for getting back something that was already yours, or getting its equal in return, which is why it fits both a loan repaid and a lost son handed back alive.Luk 6:34Luk 15:27Luk 18:30
Can mark a share already drawn and now spent, so the recipient has nothing further coming.Luk 16:25
Can mean taking a person aside out of the crowd for a private moment, a use that has nothing to do with either welcome or payment.Mrk 7:33
Both
Both are commonly rendered "receive", so the English gives no hint whether a settled claim or an open welcome is in view.Luk 18:30Mrk 10:15
Both describe coming into possession of what God grants, one as the promised outcome that is finally handed over and the other as the gift a person must be willing to take.Gal 4:5Mrk 10:15
Both take a person as their object, so a sentence reading "he received him" could be either getting someone back or taking someone in.Luk 15:27Jhn 4:45
The standard word for opening your home and table to a guest or a travelling messenger, and for the refusal that shuts the door on one.Mat 10:14Luk 9:53Luk 10:8Heb 11:31Col 4:10
Used for taking a spoken or written message to heart as true, which makes it the regular word for how people respond to preaching.Luk 8:13Act 8:14Act 17:111Th 2:13Jas 1:21
Carries the idea that welcoming the person sent counts as welcoming the one who sent him, so the host's response reaches past the guest.Mat 10:40Mat 18:5Mrk 9:37Gal 4:14
Describes a willingness that can be urged, wasted or flatly withheld, so it is often commanded and just as often denied.Mrk 6:111Co 2:142Co 6:12Th 2:10
Used for simply taking into your hands or arms what someone holds out to you, with no suggestion that you had a claim on it.Luk 2:28Luk 16:6Luk 22:17Eph 6:17
προσλαμβάνωto take someone to yourself, whether to welcome them in or to draw them aside for a private word
Its main weight is collecting what is owed: a wage, a repayment, a reward earned by work. Lenders lend to the like-minded so as to get back the same amount, and workers are told what is coming to them from their master.Luk 6:34Col 3:242Jn 1:8
What is owed can be a punishment rather than a prize, so the same word covers getting the payback you had coming. Nothing in the other word carries this sense of a debt settled against you.Luk 23:41Rom 1:27
It also covers finally getting hold of something that was already promised or already yours, so the receiving closes an account rather than opening a relationship.Gal 4:5Luk 16:25Luk 18:30
Both
Both can describe one person pulling another out of a crowd for a private moment. Jesus takes the deaf man away from the crowd on his own, and Peter takes Jesus aside to rebuke him.Mrk 7:33Mat 16:22Mrk 8:32
Both are regularly rendered "received" with a person as the object, which is where English blurs them. The father in the story of the lost son gets his boy back safe and sound, while Philemon is asked to take Onesimus in as he would take Paul himself.Luk 15:27Phm 1:12
Its ordinary sense is welcoming a person in: taking someone into your home, your company, or your fellowship. This is the word behind the call to welcome the believer whose faith is weak and to welcome one another.Rom 14:1Rom 15:7Phm 1:17Act 28:2
God and Christ are the subject of this welcome, and that divine welcome sets the standard for the human one. The other word is never used this way.Rom 14:3Rom 15:7
Because it means taking someone to your own side, it can describe rounding people up for your own ends, including a bad one: the hostile crowd recruits troublemakers from the marketplace.Act 17:5
Even when a thing rather than a person is taken, the sense is taking it into yourself rather than claiming it as a due: on the storm-tossed ship the sailors had taken no food, then took some.Act 27:33Act 27:36
When it does mean drawing someone aside, the person drawn aside is taken under the wing of the one who draws them: Priscilla and Aquila take Apollos in and explain the way of God to him more accurately.Act 18:26
apolambanō in the other biblical languages
לָקַחHebrew“to take: take”the general Hebrew verb for taking or receiving, which leaves it to the sentence to say whether the thing taken was already owed
The idea of something owed is built into the Greek word itself, so a writer can say "receive" and the reader already knows the thing received was coming to that person. The criminal beside Jesus says the two of them are getting what their deeds deserve (Luke 23:41), Paul says those who abandon what is natural take in themselves the payback that fits their error (Romans 1:27), and slaves are told they will get from the Lord the repayment that is the inheritance (Colossians 3:24).Luk 23:41Rom 1:27Col 3:24
It can mean getting BACK what had gone away from you. Even the greedy lend so that they may get back the same amount they handed out (Luke 6:34), and the father in the parable has his son back again, safe and sound (Luke 15:27).Luk 6:34Luk 15:27
Because the word settles an account, it can say that a person's share has already been handed over in full, with nothing left outstanding. Abraham tells the rich man he already got his good things during his lifetime (Luke 16:25), and John urges his readers to watch themselves so that they collect a reward in full rather than lose what they worked for (2 John 1:8).Luk 16:252Jn 1:8
Both
Both can name a person collecting the share that has been assigned to him, which is the one place the Hebrew word carries the sense of entitlement the Greek word always carries. Abram's allies are to take the portion that is theirs from the recovered spoil (Genesis 14:24), the Levites take the tithe God gave them as their inheritance (Numbers 18:26), and God's rescued people receive the standing of sons that redemption bought for them (Galatians 4:5).Gen 14:24Num 18:26Gal 4:5
Both reach past goods to people, describing someone taking a person along or leading him somewhere. God took the man and settled him in the garden (Genesis 2:15), and Jesus took the deaf man away from the crowd to be alone with him (Mark 7:33).Gen 2:15Mrk 7:33
It is the plain, everyday word for picking a thing up and carrying it, with no thought of payment or desert anywhere in view. Abraham takes the wood for the offering and then takes the fire and the knife in his hand (Genesis 22:6), and earlier he takes curds and milk and the calf to set before his visitors (Genesis 18:8).Gen 22:6Gen 18:8
It is the standard Hebrew way of saying that a man married a woman, a use the Greek word never has. Lamech took two wives (Genesis 4:19), Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife (Ruth 4:13), and the law about divorce opens with a man taking a wife (Deuteronomy 24:1).Gen 4:19Rut 4:13Deu 24:1
Nothing in the Hebrew word says whether the taker had any right to what he took, so the sentence has to supply that. The same verb covers raiders carrying off Lot and everything he owned (Genesis 14:12) and Samuel's warning that a king will simply help himself to the people's best fields (1 Samuel 8:14).Gen 14:121Sa 8:14
It can describe God removing a person from ordinary life altogether. God took Enoch, and he was no more (Genesis 5:24), and the prophets ask Elisha whether he knows the LORD is taking his master away from him that very day (2 Kings 2:3).Gen 5:242Ki 2:3
שָׁלֵםHebrew“to complete”the Hebrew verb for settling an account and paying in full, which watches the transaction from the payer's side rather than the receiver's
What scholars say about apolambanō
The verb is ἀπό prefixed to λαμβάνω, and the lexicons divide it along the two lines the prefix allows. BDAG lists receiving what is due or owed, receiving back or recovering, and the middle used of taking someone aside; LSJ documents the same spread in classical authors, where the verb is at home in commercial and legal contexts for taking delivery of goods, collecting debts, and receiving one's allotted share. Moulton and Milligan record the same commercial usage in the documentary papyri, which fits the way the New Testament instances cluster around loans, wages, inheritances, and recompense. Delling's treatment of the λαμβάνω group in TDNT locates the compound's force in the appropriateness of what is received to the one who receives it, rather than in any technical theological sense. The most-discussed instance is Mark 7:33, where the middle participle ἀπολαβόμενος is usually rendered "taking him aside"; commentators observe that the following ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου ("away from the crowd") already supplies the separation, so the compound may be no stronger there than the simple verb, although the classical evidence for the middle in this sense is good. Galatians 4:5 and Colossians 3:24 are the places where receiving what was promised shades into recompense, and interpreters differ over which note dominates in each.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἀπολαμβάνωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἀπολαμβάνωlexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ἀπολαμβάνωlexicon
G. Delling, "λαμβάνω κτλ.," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 4theological dictionary
R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, New International Greek Testament Commentary, on Mark 7:31-37commentary
F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, New International Greek Testament Commentary, on Galatians 4:4-5commentary