StrongerBible

kleis

κλείς

GreekG2807“key, keys”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 16:19Luk 11:52Rev 1:18Rev 3:7Rev 9:1Rev 20:1
Root family
Word studyKLACEnoun

What kleis means

a key: the tool that locks and unlocks a door, and so the sign of who has the right to let people in or shut them out

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

In the ancient world a key was nothing like the small metal object on a modern key ring. It was commonly a wooden or iron bar fitted with pegs, large enough that a household steward could carry it on his shoulder in plain sight. Whoever held it held an office, and everyone could see who that was. So the word moved easily from the tool to the standing it represented: the person with the key decides whether the door opens.

All six New Testament uses work that way, and none of them describes anyone unlocking an actual door. What the picture controls is access, and it turns in two directions, because a door keeps people out and also keeps people in. The kingdom of heaven, knowledge, and the house of David are places you want to get into. Death, the grave, and the pit are places you want to get out of. One word covers both, since both come down to the same question: who holds the door.

Revelation 3:7 works straight from Isaiah 22:22, where God takes the key of the house of David (מַפְתֵּחַ) away from one steward and lays it on the shoulder of another, who then opens with no one able to shut and shuts with no one able to open. Set beside the Greek word for authority (ἐξουσία), which names a right in the abstract, this word names the thing you can see and hand over. It is the noun that belongs with the verb "to shut" (κλείω), so it keeps a real door in view even when the door is the entrance to a kingdom.

Nuances

1athe key as the right of admission: authority to open a door to people or to bar it against them
Mat 16:19Luk 11:52Rev 3:7
Mat 16:19

What the keys of the kingdom in Matthew 16:19 authorize: admitting and excluding persons, or declaring conduct permitted and forbidden.

  • contestedThe keys are the steward's authority to admit or exclude, following the image in Isaiah 22:22 of the key laid on the shoulder of the household manager.; TDNT, s.v. κλείς (Joachim Jeremias)
  • contestedBinding and loosing is the rabbinic idiom for declaring conduct forbidden or permitted, so the keys stand for authority over teaching and the interpretation of the law.; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20 (Hermeneia), on 16:19
1bthe key as power over a place of confinement: authority to lock someone in or to let them out
Rev 1:18Rev 9:1Rev 20:1

What scholars say about kleis

The lexica are unanimous on the sense. BDAG and LSJ give "key" as the basic meaning, LSJ recording the wider classical range the New Testament does not use (the bar or bolt of a door, the hook of a brooch, the collar-bone, the thole-pin of a rowing bench). Jeremias, in the TDNT article, traces the metaphorical development: the key as the mark of a steward's delegated office, the rabbinic image of God retaining the keys of rain, birth, and the resurrection of the dead, and the Isaiah 22:22 background behind Revelation 3:7. All six New Testament instances are figurative, so the exegetical discussion concerns the referent of each genitive phrase rather than the lexeme itself. On Matthew 16:19 the debate over the keys of the kingdom is surveyed by Davies and Allison and by Luz, who set the halakhic reading of binding and loosing (declaring things forbidden or permitted, on the strength of the rabbinic parallels) beside the disciplinary reading drawn from Matthew 18:18. On Revelation, Beale reads the keys of death and Hades against the Isaianic steward image and the wider claim of the risen Christ to hold what no one else can open or shut.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. κλείςlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. κλείςlexicon
  • TDNT, s.v. κλείς (Joachim Jeremias)theological-dictionary
  • EDNT, s.v. κλείςtheological-dictionary
  • W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), on 16:19commentary
  • Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20 (Hermeneia), on 16:19commentary
  • G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation (NIGTC), on 1:18 and 3:7commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of κλείς

accusative f s

κλεῖν, κλεῖδα

Rev 3:7, Rev 20:1, Luk 11:52

accusative f p

κλεῖδας, κλεῖς

Mat 16:19, Rev 1:18

nominative f s

κλεὶς

Rev 9:1