to eat up completely: to devour, consume, or swallow down until nothing is left
TranslatabilityDirectCertaintySettled
This verb takes the ordinary word for eating, ἐσθίω, and adds a prefix meaning "down" or "all the way," turning plain eating into eating something up completely. The picture is not a quiet meal but a total consuming: the food, the prey, the property, or even the person is finished off, leaving nothing behind.
From that one concrete image the New Testament reaches naturally into several settings:
Birds strip a field of its scattered seed, and fire swallows an army whole.
Religious leaders "devour" widows' houses, and a runaway son "devours" his inheritance on reckless living.
Quarreling believers are warned that they will consume one another until nothing is left.
In each case the force is the same: something is being used up to the point of ruin. At its gentlest the word simply means to eat, as when a prophet is told to swallow a small scroll whole; at its fiercest it describes zeal so intense that it eats a person alive. What holds every use together is completeness. Whatever is devoured is taken in entirely and does not come back.
Nuances
1ato eat up: to take something in as food and consume it entirely
Mat 13:4Mrk 4:4Luk 8:5Rev 10:9Rev 10:10Rev 12:4
1bto burn up: fire consuming completely what it falls on
Rev 11:5Rev 20:9
1cto devour someone's property: to swallow up another person's livelihood or wealth, often by exploitation or reckless spending
Mat 23:14Mrk 12:40Luk 15:30Luk 20:472Co 11:20
1dto destroy one another: to tear each other apart until both are ruined
Gal 5:15
1eto consume a person: an overwhelming passion that eats someone up from within
the ordinary, neutral verb for taking a meal, with no note of consuming to the point of destruction; it covers everyday eating and questions of table fellowship and dietMat 9:11Mrk 14:18Rom 14:2
carries the settings of formal and sacred meals, including sharing bread at the Lord's tableMrk 14:221Co 11:26
καταπίνωto swallow or gulp something down whole; this word pictures eating a thing up and finishing it off rather than swallowing it in one go.
Covers plain eating of food, with birds clearing the scattered seed off the path and John told to take the little scroll and eat it.Mat 13:4Mrk 4:4Luk 8:5Rev 10:9Rev 10:10
Is the ordinary word for eating through someone's money or property: a son who ran through his father's estate, teachers who eat up widows' houses, and believers who let a bully strip them bare.Luk 15:30Mrk 12:40Luk 20:47Mat 23:142Co 11:20
Casts fire as the eater, burning enemies up until nothing of them is left.Rev 11:5Rev 20:9
Describes people tearing into one another so fiercely that the whole group is eaten up in the process.Gal 5:15
Both
Both are used of a predator closing on a victim, the prowling lion hunting for someone to take down and the dragon crouched to make a meal of a newborn child.1Pe 5:8Rev 12:4
Both can describe a strong feeling taking a person over, with grief threatening to overwhelm one man and zeal for God's house eating away at another.2Co 2:7Jhn 2:17
Pictures taking something down the throat whole, in one gulp, with no chewing involved. Jesus mocks leaders who strain a gnat out of their drink and then get an entire camel down.Mat 23:24
Fits water or ground closing over something so that it is simply gone from sight: the sea covering the Egyptian army, and the earth opening to drink down the flood the dragon spat out.Heb 11:29Rev 12:16
Names one condition being absorbed into a greater one and replaced by it, so that death is taken up into victory and what is mortal is taken up into life.1Co 15:542Co 5:4
ἀναλίσκωto consume, use up, or destroy in the abstract; this word keeps the vivid image of eating, and the two stand side by side in the warning of Galatians 5:15.
katesthiō in the other biblical languages
אָכַלHebrew“to eat”the broad Hebrew verb that covers eating, consuming, and devouring all together; this Greek word is narrower, marking specifically the intensive "eat up completely."
בָּלַעHebrew“to swallow up”the Hebrew word for swallowing something up or engulfing it whole, close to this word's sense of consuming until nothing remains.
It is the standard word for stripping people of their money and property, so that "devour" becomes a charge of financial predation: religious leaders who swallow up the homes of widows, a son who runs through his father's estate, and outsiders who bleed a whole congregation dry.Mat 23:14Mrk 12:40Luk 20:47Luk 15:302Co 11:20
It can name the damage members of one community do to each other, warning a church that if they keep biting and eating each other up there will be nothing left of any of them.Gal 5:15
It can turn inward and describe a passion that consumes the person who feels it, as when zeal for God's house is said to eat someone up.Jhn 2:17
Both
Both are used of an animal eating something up so that nothing is left, whether that is birds clearing away scattered seed or a bear ordered to gorge itself on flesh.Mat 13:4Mrk 4:4Dan 7:5
Both can describe a human being swallowing something no person would normally eat, such as a prophet made to eat a scroll or a king reduced to eating grass like cattle.Rev 10:9Rev 10:10Dan 4:33
Both picture violent destruction as a meal, so fire that wipes out an attacking army and iron teeth that chew up whatever the beast catches are described with the same verb of eating.Rev 11:5Rev 20:9Dan 7:7Dan 7:19
It carries a set phrase, literally eating someone's pieces, that has nothing to do with food: it means to denounce a person to the authorities, and it is how the Babylonian officials bring charges against the Jews and against Daniel. The Greek word is never used for making an accusation.Dan 3:8Dan 6:24
It is used of an empire swallowing territory, saying that the fourth kingdom will eat up the whole earth and tread it down. The Greek word is aimed at people, food, and property, never at land itself.Dan 7:23
What scholars say about katesthiō
κατεσθίω is the intensive compound of ἐσθίω (with the suppletive aorist stem φαγ-), the preverb κατά lending a perfective, "eat up entirely" force. BDAG catalogs the range under a single head: literal consumption by animals or persons (Matt 13:4 and parallels; Rev 10:9-10; 12:4), destruction by fire (Rev 11:5; 20:9), the idiomatic "consume/exploit" of another's property (Mark 12:40 and parallels; Luke 15:30;2 Cor 11:20), mutual destruction (Gal 5:15), and consuming emotion (John 2:17, citing Ps 69:9). The exploitation usage has strong Septuagint precedent (e.g. Ps 14:4;Hos 7:7) and parallels across Hellenistic Greek. Standard lexica register no dispute over the word's sense.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. κατεσθίωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. κατεσθίωlexicon
J. Behm, "ἐσθίω, κατεσθίω," TDNT 2:689-695theological-dictionary