to step into something: to get in, especially to board a boat
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This verb joins the idea of "in" to a verb of walking, so at its root it means to step into a place on foot. In the Gospels it becomes almost a set word for one action: getting into a boat. Jesus and his disciples put out onto the Sea of Galilee again and again, and each time they board, this is the verb.
The picture is plain and physical: a person steps off the shore down into the vessel. Nothing in the word itself names a boat; the boat is supplied by the scene around it. The single place it describes anything else is the pool of Bethesda, where a sick person hopes to step down into the stirred water before anyone else.
It sits close to the broad verb for going in, εἰσέρχομαι, which covers walking into any space, and to ἐπιβαίνω, a verb for going aboard a ship or climbing onto an animal. Set beside these, this is the homelier word for the one step that puts a person inside.
names only the physical act of stepping in, leaving the object, a boat, to be supplied by the surrounding sceneMat 8:23
Both
both describe getting aboard a boatMat 14:22
Only embark
the English word "embark" points specifically to boarding a ship and can also mean to begin a venture, a figurative reach the Greek never takes
“get into”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“go aboard”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“step in”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How embainō differs from similar Greek words
εἰσέρχομαιthe general verb for going in or entering any space; this word is narrower, the specific step that carries a person into a boat.
ἐπιβαίνωto go aboard a ship or to mount an animal, stepping onto or up; this word is the step down into the vessel itself.
embainō in the other biblical languages
בּוֹאHebrew“to come (in): come”the broad Hebrew verb for coming or going in; Hebrew has no dedicated word for boarding a boat, since sea travel is rare in the Hebrew Bible, so this general verb of entering is the nearest counterpart.
What scholars say about embainō
The verb is a compound of the preposition "in" and the common verb of walking or going, and in both classical and Koine Greek means to step into or to mount. In the Greek New Testament its use narrows almost entirely to embarking on a boat, the standard idiom for setting out on the Sea of Galilee; the lone exception is the disputed longer text of John 5, where it describes stepping into the pool of Bethesda. Standard lexicons treat it as a straightforward verb of motion carrying no specialized theological weight.