to turn: to change direction so as to face or move toward something, whether a body turning around, a person going back to a place, or a heart turning to God
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its core this verb means to turn so as to face or head toward something. Everything it does grows from that one picture. A person can turn their body around (the disciple who turns to see who touched him), go back the way they came (returning home, returning to a city already visited), or be turned by someone else (a prophet who turns rebels back to obedience).
From that physical turning comes its most important use: turning to God. The New Testament makes this verb one of its plainest words for conversion, the decisive turn away from idols or from sin and toward the living God. When the early church described what happened when people believed, they often said simply that they "turned to the Lord."
The same word also covers the small, personal turning of one person back to another in reconciliation, as when an offender turns back saying "I repent." The senses below are shades of the one act of turning, not separate words, which is why the same verb can mean a head swiveling around and a life reoriented toward God.
Nuances
1ato turn around, turn back, or face about: a physical turning of the body
Carries the developed sense of turning to God: a change of allegiance and life that English Bibles often render convert or be converted.Act 3:191Th 1:91Pe 2:25
Names the act of turning back or returning to a place, a person, or a former state, with the goal of the return built into the word.Mat 12:44Mat 24:18Luk 17:4
Used for one person turning others back, bringing them home to right belief and conduct.Luk 1:16Jas 5:19Jas 5:20
Both
Both describe a person physically turning around or turning to face another, often just before they speak or act.Mrk 5:30Luk 22:61
Both can carry a figurative sense of changing direction in heart or loyalty, a shift away from one way and toward another.Mat 13:15Jhn 12:40
The plain physical pivot: a person simply turning the body around or turning to face someone, with no further direction implied.Luk 7:9Luk 7:44Jhn 20:14Jhn 20:16
Means to turn something into something else, or to turn a thing back against a person, including handing the body over to a blow.Mat 5:39Act 7:42Rev 11:6
Used for an inward change of disposition pictured as turning, such as becoming like a child, without the word itself naming God as the destination.Mat 18:3
μετανοέωto change one's mind and repent; it names the inward change of heart, while turning to God names the resulting reorientation of the whole person
Names a literal, physical turning of the body or a change of direction, with no moral content at all.Mrk 5:30Mrk 13:16Luk 17:31Jhn 21:20Rev 1:12
Can take an object: one person turns another back, or turns a group toward God, so the turning may be done to someone rather than only by them.Luk 1:16Luk 1:17Jas 5:19Jas 5:20
Pictures the convert as a wanderer coming home: turning back to God from idols or false paths, away from where one had strayed.Act 14:151Th 1:91Pe 2:252Pe 2:222Co 3:16
Both
Both describe the conversion of sinners to God, and the New Testament can place them side by side to name one turning: the inward change of heart and the outward turn back to God.Act 3:19Act 26:20
Both can name the response a person owes when confronted with their sin, the act that should follow being shown the wrong.Luk 17:4Luk 17:3
Names the inward change of mind and heart itself, a new way of thinking, never a movement of the body.Luk 17:32Co 12:21Rev 9:20Rev 9:21
Is the standard preaching summons: the one-word command that opens the message of John, Jesus, and the apostles.Mat 3:2Mat 4:17Mrk 1:15Mrk 6:12Act 2:38Act 17:30
Carries the weight of grief and judgment: the failure to do it is the charge against a city or person, and it is what God demands under threat.Mat 11:20Mat 11:21Luk 13:3Luk 13:5Rev 2:5Rev 3:3
ὑποστρέφωto return, used almost entirely of physically going back to a place, lacking the figurative "turn to God" sense this word commonly carries
Carries the figurative sense of turning to God: repentance and conversion, the whole-life reorientation away from idols or sin toward the Lord. This is its signature theological use, which the other word never has.Act 3:191Th 1:91Pe 2:25Act 26:20
Used of one person turning another back, or being turned back: restoring the straying to faith, or shepherding people back from error.Luk 22:32Jas 5:19Luk 1:16
Both
Both can describe simple physical turning back or going back the way one came, a literal change of direction or return in space.Mat 24:18Luk 17:31Luk 2:45Act 1:12
Means only a physical going back to a place after a journey or errand: people returning home, to a city, or from where they came. It stays literal and never describes a change of heart toward God.Luk 1:56Luk 2:45Act 1:12Heb 7:1
This is the standard New Testament word for conversion, the positive turn toward God, and it is the one that names the destination of the turn: crowds turned to the Lord, the Thessalonians turned to God from idols, a heart turns to the Lord and the veil is lifted.Act 9:351Th 1:92Co 3:16Act 26:20
Describes the small bodily movement of swinging around to face someone or something behind you: Jesus turns in the crowd to ask who touched him, Peter turns and sees the disciple following, John turns to see the voice speaking to him.Mrk 5:30Jhn 21:20Rev 1:12
Describes people going back where they came from, a journey retraced: the family returns to Galilee, the unclean spirit says it will go back to the house it left, Paul proposes going back to the towns they had preached in.Luk 2:39Mat 12:44Act 15:36
Used of bringing a straying person back, with a rescuer as the subject: John will turn many of Israel to their God, and whoever brings back a wandering believer saves a life.Luk 1:16Jas 5:19Jas 5:20
Because it means turning toward whatever you face, it can also name a relapse, a turn back to something you were rescued from: Paul asks the Galatians why they are going back to weak and beggarly things, and the proverb has the dog going back to its own vomit.Gal 4:92Pe 2:22
Both
Both are used for the moral about-face that preaching calls for, followed by the thing left behind: Peter says God sent Jesus to turn each of his hearers from their wicked ways, and Paul tells the Lystrans to turn from worthless things to the living God and is sent to turn the nations from darkness to light.Act 3:26Act 14:15Act 26:18
Neither word is religious vocabulary only; both describe plain physical action. Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back in its place, and the man in the field is told not to go back for his cloak.Mat 26:52Mat 24:18
Names the refusal itself: turning your back on a person who asks or on a message you have heard, so the word carries the sense of rejecting rather than merely moving. Jesus tells his hearers not to turn away from someone who wants to borrow; Hebrews warns against turning away from the one who speaks from heaven; Paul describes teachers who turn their hearing away from the truth and men who reject it outright.Mat 5:42Heb 12:252Ti 4:4Tit 1:14
Used of desertion, of people abandoning someone who was counting on them: Paul reports that everyone in Asia turned away from him.2Ti 1:15
Takes a thing as its object and means getting rid of it, sending it back or clearing it away rather than reorienting anyone: the deliverer will banish ungodliness from Jacob.Rom 11:26
Serves as the accusation word for stirring a crowd away from its loyalty: Pilate reports the charge that Jesus was leading the people astray.Luk 23:14
epistrephō in the other biblical languages
שׁוּבHebrew“to return: return”the great Hebrew word for turning back and returning, which stands behind the Old Testament call to return to the Lord that this Greek word echoes
Becomes the standard New Testament word for conversion: Gentiles and Jews turning to God from idols and sin, the decisive religious about-face.Act 9:35Act 14:151Th 1:9
Often simply means to turn around bodily to look or face back, an everyday physical pivot in the Gospel narratives.Mrk 5:30Jhn 21:20Rev 1:12
Both
ἐπιστρέφω is the Greek verb that most often renders שׁוב, sharing its double life of literal turning back and turning back to God: both call a straying people to return.Hos 14:1Act 3:19
Both can name the inner turn of one person back toward another after a fall, the restoring of a broken relationship.Jer 3:7Luk 22:32
Carries a heavy literal load of physical return: armies, travelers, and exiles going back to a place, far more often than a religious turning.Gen 22:19Rut 1:22
Extends to giving a thing back or repaying: restoring property, returning an answer, sending something back, a range the Greek verb does not cover.Lev 6:4Gen 37:22
carries the weight of conversion: a decisive, complete break with idolatry or sin and a reorientation of the whole person toward God, especially as a salvific turning that the NT links to repentance and faith1Th 1:9
used for restoring a straying believer: turning someone back from error rescues them and covers sinJas 5:20
Both
both describe the fundamental act of spiritual reorientation: turning toward God (or away from him) as a moral and relational movement, not merely a physical oneIsa 45:22Act 3:19
Only the Greek word carries the New Testament's language of a changed life. People turn away from idols to the living God, a mission is described as turning people from darkness to light, and straying sheep are said to have come back to their shepherd. The Aramaic verb never once speaks of turning to God.1Th 1:9Act 14:15Act 26:181Pe 2:25
The Greek word constantly reports a bodily turn in the middle of a scene: someone swings round to see who touched him, to look at the disciple following behind, to speak to a spirit, or to face the voice that is speaking. Nothing in the Aramaic word's few pages involves a person turning around.Mrk 5:30Jhn 21:20Act 16:18Rev 1:12
It is a travel word in Greek: an unclean spirit goes back to the house it left, a family goes back to its own town, and Paul proposes going back to the cities where they had preached.Mat 12:44Luk 2:39Act 15:36
The Greek word can also mean sliding back into what a person had left behind, and it is used that way as a warning: going back to an old bondage, or a dog going back to its vomit.Gal 4:92Pe 2:22
Both
Both words describe something that had gone away coming back to the person it belongs to, and both stretch that as far as a person's inner life: the Aramaic reports a king's reason coming back to him after his madness, and the Greek reports a dead girl's life coming back into her.Dan 4:34Luk 8:55
Both can mean putting something back rather than merely going back. A Persian decree orders the temple vessels sent back to Jerusalem, and James speaks of bringing a believer who has wandered from the truth back again.Ezr 6:5Jas 5:19
The commonest use of the Aramaic word has no counterpart in the Greek: to send words back to someone is simply to answer them, so it is rendered "answered" when Daniel speaks to the officer sent to kill the wise men, and when three young men tell the king they need give him no reply.Dan 2:14Dan 3:16
It is at home in imperial paperwork, where what comes back is a document: officials wait for a written answer to be sent back from the king, and the elders' own reply to an inquiry is quoted as a formal report.Ezr 5:5Ezr 5:11
What scholars say about epistrephō
Standard lexica treat ἐπιστρέφω as a single verb whose sense unfolds from the basic notion of turning. BDAG groups its uses under transitive "turn, turn around, turn back, cause to return" and intransitive "turn, turn around" and "turn back, return," with the figurative religious sense "turn to God, be converted" as a developed application especially prominent in Luke-Acts. The verb renders Hebrew שׁוּב (shuv) in the Septuagint, importing the prophetic theology of returning to the LORD, which underlies the conversion language of Acts (3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 26:18-20) and 1 Thessalonians 1:9. The semantic range is not disputed; the verb is well understood and its senses shade continuously from physical to spiritual turning.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. ἐπιστρέφωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. ἐπιστρέφωlexicon
G. Bertram, "στρέφω, ἐπιστρέφω," TDNT 7:714-729theological-dictionary