to take hold of: lay hands on a person or thing and grasp it
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
At its root this verb is about the hands closing on something. The grip can be violent, when soldiers or a crowd seize a person to arrest or attack him, or it can be gentle, when Jesus takes a sick or dead person by the hand to raise them up. The same physical action covers both, which is why the New Testament uses one word for laying hold of a man to drag him away and for taking a child's hand to bring her back to life.
What the senses below share is the simple picture of a hand grasping its object. The mood of the grasp, hostile or helping, comes from the scene around it, not from the word itself.
Nuances
1ato seize or arrest: lay hands on someone to capture or attack
1bto take by the hand: grasp a person to raise, heal, or help them
Mat 9:25Mrk 1:31Mrk 5:41Mrk 9:27Luk 8:54
1cto grasp or hold onto: take hold of a thing or a person without hostility
Mat 12:11Mat 28:9Act 3:11Act 27:13*
2
to hold fast: keep a firm grip on something so as not to let it go
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Once something is in hand, this verb describes refusing to release it. Often the object is not physical at all but a teaching, a confession, or a practice handed down: believers are told to hold fast what they have been taught, and Jesus commends or warns churches for what they are holding onto, whether sound teaching or false. The same word can describe keeping a saying to oneself rather than spreading it.
This is the figurative reach of the grasping picture. To hold a tradition is to keep it in your grip the way a hand keeps an object, and to retain something is to refuse to open the hand and let it fall away.
Nuances
2ato hold fast to teaching, confession, or tradition: keep it and refuse to let it slip
2bto keep or retain: hold something back rather than release it
Mrk 9:10Jhn 20:23 (2×)
3
to hold in one's power: keep something in a grip it cannot break free of
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Here the grip belongs to a force rather than a hand, and the point is mastery: the thing held cannot get loose. Death is pictured as gripping Jesus until God breaks the hold, and at Emmaus the disciples' eyes are kept shut so they cannot recognize him.
This sense slides naturally out of the others. To take hold and to hold fast both imply control of what is grasped, and when the one doing the holding is powerful enough, holding becomes holding captive.
is the broad, neutral word for taking something into hand, used for everyday objects like bread or a cup with no force impliedMat 26:26Mat 26:27Mat 14:19
covers receiving what is offered or given, accepting a gift, a payment, or what one asks forMat 7:8Mat 10:8Mat 20:9
πιάζωto catch or arrest, focused on the moment of capture; this word more often stresses keeping hold afterward
It is the ordinary word for laying hands on a person to arrest him. Crowds and officials "seize" Jesus, and a governor's men take a prisoner into custody.Mat 26:55Mrk 14:46Act 24:6
It covers the plain physical act of taking someone by the hand to lift or heal, with no loyalty in view at all: Jesus takes the hand of a fevered woman, a dead girl, and a boy on the ground.Mrk 1:31Mrk 5:41Luk 8:54
It expresses power to hold something back or keep it captive, where the thing held has no say in the matter: death could not "hold" Jesus, angels hold back the winds, and the disciples' eyes are held so they cannot recognize him.Act 2:24Rev 7:1Luk 24:16
It can mean keeping back what one might have released or told: sins "retained" rather than forgiven, and a saying the disciples kept to themselves.Jhn 20:23Mrk 9:10
Both
Both describe keeping a firm hold on trustworthy teaching so it is not lost: an overseer holds to the reliable message he was taught, and believers are told to hold on to what was handed down to them.Tit 1:92Th 2:15Heb 4:14
Both can name loyal attachment to one person or authority rather than to a thing: a servant sticks with his own master, and the church keeps its hold on Christ as its head.Mat 6:24Col 2:19Rev 2:25
It is the word for loyalty when two rival claims force a choice: a servant who cannot answer to two masters will "hold to" the one and reject the other. The grip is chosen, and choosing it means letting the rival go.Mat 6:24Luk 16:13
It can mean taking hold of someone in order to hold them UP: Paul tells the church to "help" the weak, which is a steadying grip offered for the other person's sake rather than for the holder's own gain.1Th 5:14
It is the word for a forcible arrest, laying violent hands on someone to capture and hold them fast.Mat 26:4Mat 26:55Mrk 14:46
It carries a figurative sense of clinging to something so as not to lose it, holding fast to teaching, to a confession, or to hope.2Th 2:15Heb 4:14Rev 3:11
It can mean to restrain or keep in one's power: holding back the winds, death unable to keep its grip, sins that are retained.Act 2:24Rev 7:1Jhn 20:23
Both
Both describe making physical hand contact with a person's body in a moment of healing or raising, and the Gospels even use them of the same event. Matthew says Jesus touched Peter's mother-in-law by the hand, while Mark says he took her by the hand and lifted her up.Mat 8:15Mrk 1:31
It names the touch itself, the moment of contact, without any sense of gripping or holding on. A sick person only had to make contact for healing power to pass, whether Jesus reached out to them or they reached the edge of his cloak.Mat 8:3Mat 9:20Mrk 5:27
In its active form it means to set alight, to light a lamp, a meaning firm seizure never carries.Luk 8:16Luk 11:33Luk 15:8
It covers the forbidden or defiling contact of the purity rules, where the danger is in touching at all, not in taking hold.2Co 6:17Col 2:211Co 7:1
the plain physical act of taking hold of a person or thing: grasping, laying hands on, or arresting. In Mark 1:31 Jesus takes the sick woman by the hand, and in Matthew 26:4 the leaders plot to seize him by stealth.Mrk 1:31Mat 26:4
a figurative grip that will not let go: holding fast, keeping, or retaining what one already has. 2 Thessalonians 2:15 urges believers to hold the traditions they were taught, and Hebrews 4:14 to hold fast their confession.2Th 2:15Heb 4:14
Both
both can picture using physical force to bring a resisting person under control. In Mark 5:4 no one was strong enough to subdue the man among the tombs, and in Mark 14:46 the crowd lays hands on Jesus and holds him fast.Mrk 5:4Mrk 14:46
means to break the wildness out of a living thing so it becomes manageable, mastering its nature rather than just holding its body. James 3:7 says every kind of beast has been tamed by people, and James 3:8 says no one can tame the tongue.Jas 3:7Jas 3:8
It can mean keeping a firm hold over time: clinging to a teaching, a confession, or a promise and refusing to let it go.2Th 2:15Heb 4:14
It carries the idea of having something in one's power or holding it back, so that death cannot keep its grip or a person's sins are retained.Act 2:24Jhn 20:23
It is the ordinary word for taking someone by the hand, often to lift or to heal, a firm but caring grasp.Mrk 1:31Mrk 5:41
Both
Both name the physical seizing of a person to arrest them, and they stand side by side in the accounts of Jesus' arrest, where hands are laid on him and he is taken into custody.Mat 26:50Mrk 14:46
It pictures throwing or laying one thing onto another: sewing a new patch onto an old garment, or spreading cloaks onto a colt to ride.Mat 9:16Mrk 11:7
It can describe something falling or breaking upon a person or thing with no human grip at all, like waves crashing into a boat or a share of an estate coming to an heir.Mrk 4:37Luk 15:12
When it is used of an arrest, it names the opening move of reaching out and putting hands on someone, the instant of laying hold rather than the sustained hold that follows.Jhn 7:44Act 21:27
leans toward holding something BACK: restraining, suppressing, or keeping a force in check rather than grabbing it2Th 2:62Th 2:7Rom 1:18
means to keep or retain something in one's own possession, to hold on to what one already hasPhm 1:131Co 7:302Co 6:10
krateō in the other biblical languages
חָזַקHebrew“to strengthen: strengthen”the common Hebrew verb for being strong or taking firm hold, often used where Greek would use this word for grasping and holding fast
Frequently means to arrest or take into custody by force: the repeated seizing of Jesus, John, and the apostles.Mat 26:50Mrk 14:46Act 24:6
Used figuratively for holding fast to and keeping a teaching, tradition, or confession, refusing to let it go.2Th 2:15Heb 4:14Rev 2:25
Used of retaining or keeping back, as when sins are held against someone rather than forgiven.Jhn 20:23
Both
Both name the act of taking firm physical hold of a person or thing by the hand, the Greek word being the natural New Testament counterpart to the Hebrew word's grip: taking someone by the hand to raise them, or catching and gripping what one is after.Mrk 1:31Mat 9:25Gen 22:13Rut 3:15
Reaches past gripping into settled possession of land: taking hold of territory and settling in it.Gen 34:10Gen 47:27Num 32:30
Used of inward and bodily seizing: trembling, pangs, and dread that grip a person fast.Exo 15:14Job 21:6Psa 48:6
What scholars say about krateō
Standard lexica (BDAG, LSJ) treat κρατέω as a single polysemous verb built on the noun κράτος (strength, power), with a spread of senses radiating from the physical act of grasping: (1) to take into one's grasp, seize, arrest; (2) to hold, hold fast, retain, including the figurative holding of teaching and tradition; and (3) to have power over, master, hold in one's grip. BDAG subdivides the seizure sense by purpose (hostile arrest versus taking by the hand to help) and gives the figurative "hold fast to" usage its own prominence given its frequency in Hebrews, the Pauline letters, and Revelation. The retention sense at John 20:23, where sins are "held," is the lexical counterpart to "forgive" (ἀφίημι) and is widely discussed in commentary on the verse. In the Septuagint κρατέω commonly renders the Hebrew root חזק (to be strong, take hold), reinforcing the link between strength and grip.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. κρατέωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. κρατέωlexicon
W. Michaelis, "κράτος, κρατέω," TDNT 3:905-915theological-dictionary