esthiō

This is the ordinary word for eating, the everyday act of taking food into the body. Most of the time it carries no special weight at all: people eat bread, grain, crumbs, and meals, and the word simply names what they are doing.

But because eating in the ancient world was rarely a private act, the same plain word often carries a social charge. To eat with someone was to accept them, and the Gospels turn on this: Jesus is attacked for eating with tax collectors and sinners, and his readiness to share a table becomes a sign of who God welcomes. Here the verb still just means "eat," but the point of the sentence is the company kept at the meal.

The two senses below are not different definitions of the word. They mark the difference between simply naming the act of eating and using that same act to signal fellowship and belonging.

The same verb can be used the way English speaks of fire "eating up" or "devouring" what it destroys. The picture is of fire taking in its fuel the way a person takes in food, leaving nothing behind.

In the New Testament this use appears once, in a warning about judgment: a fire ready to consume those who oppose God. It draws on a long stretch of Scripture where the same image describes God's judgment as a devouring fire.