to arrive at an endpoint: to reach a place, or to reach a goal or condition one has been moving toward
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its core this verb pictures arriving all the way down at a fixed endpoint. The added prefix strengthens plain "come": it is not merely to be on the way but to reach the point you were heading for. That endpoint can be a spot on a map, a goal a person is pressing toward, or a moment that finally lands on someone.
Most of its appearances are ordinary travel. Luke uses it again and again in Acts to move Paul and his companions from harbor to harbor: they "came to" Miletus, Ptolemais, Rhegium, Ephesus. In these places it is simply the reporter's word for reaching the next stop.
Paul then lifts the same word into a picture of spiritual journey. Believers press on "until we all reach the unity of the faith," and Paul himself hopes to "attain to the resurrection from the dead." Here the destination is not a city but a state God is bringing his people toward, and the travel word carries the sense of a pilgrimage that finally arrives. The word also runs the other direction: a message or an appointed time can itself "come to" or "come upon" people, as when Paul says the ends of the ages have arrived on his generation.
Nuances
1ato arrive at a place: to reach a destination on a journey
This is the travel word of Acts, marking one stop after another on a journey by road or by sea: Ephesus (Acts 18:19), Miletus (Acts 20:15), Ptolemais (Acts 21:7), Puteoli (Acts 28:13), and the harbor the sailors hoped to make before winter (Acts 27:12). Its companion word never marks a stage of a trip like this.Act 18:19Act 20:15Act 21:7Act 27:12Act 28:13
It can point at a destination nobody has arrived at yet, spoken of as hope rather than as ground already covered: the promise the tribes of Israel keep hoping to reach (Acts 26:7), and the resurrection of the dead that Paul presses toward without claiming to have got there (Philippians 3:11).Act 26:7Php 3:11
Both
Both can simply say that the trip was finished and the traveler got to the people he was aiming for: Paul reaching Derbe and Lystra (Acts 16:1) and Agrippa reaching Caesarea (Acts 25:13), and Paul reminding the Corinthians that his own work came all the way to them (2 Corinthians 10:14).Act 16:1Act 25:132Co 10:14
Both stretch past geography to reaching a standard or a stage of growth: everyone coming together into full maturity (Ephesians 4:13), Israel running after a right standing it never reached (Romans 9:31), and believers told to keep walking by the ground they have already covered (Philippians 3:16).Eph 4:13Rom 9:31Php 3:16
It can mean getting there first, ahead of somebody else. Paul promises that believers still alive when the Lord comes will not reach him before the believers who have already died (1 Thessalonians 4:15).1Th 4:15
It is the word for God's kingdom and God's anger arriving on people where they stand, something that overtakes them rather than a place they travel to: the kingdom of God has already come upon you (Matthew 12:28,Luke 11:20), and God's anger has at last caught up with those who kept shutting the message down (1 Thessalonians 2:16).Mat 12:28Luk 11:201Th 2:16
παραγίνομαιπαραγίνομαι is simply to show up or be present somewhere; καταντάω pictures arriving at the terminus of a journey
Presents oneself before people, coming to them or joining a group in person.Luk 7:4Act 9:26Act 23:16
Marks a figure stepping onto the scene, appearing publicly to begin a mission.Mat 3:1Mat 3:13Heb 9:11
katantaō in the other biblical languages
בּוֹאHebrew“to come (in): come”בּוֹא is the broad Hebrew verb for coming, entering, or arriving; καταντάω is narrower, marking arrival at a fixed endpoint or the reaching of a goal
What scholars say about katantaō
BDAG (s.v. καταντάω) divides the verb into a literal sense of arriving at a place, dominant in Acts, and a transferred sense of attaining to a goal or condition (Eph 4:13;Phil 3:11), with a further nuance of something (a message, the eschatological turning of the ages) coming to or upon persons (1 Cor 10:11; 14:36). The perfective force of the kata- prefix marks arrival at a terminus rather than motion alone. LSJ documents the same range in wider Greek, and Moulton-Milligan cite its currency in the papyri for reaching a destination or falling to a person as an inheritance. EDNT treats the Pauline uses as a controlled travel metaphor for eschatological arrival. The sense inventory is uncontested.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. καταντάωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. καταντάωlexicon
J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. καταντάωlexicon