to clothe: to wrap or throw a garment around a body, whether dressing another person or being dressed oneself
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
The word is built from a root that means to throw or cast something around. So its picture is not just of putting on clothes but of a garment being wrapped or draped around the body, often an outer robe or cloak rather than an undergarment.
It works in two directions that the New Testament keeps distinct. Someone can clothe another person, as when the righteous in the parable clothe a stranger who has no clothes, or when soldiers throw a robe over Jesus to mock him. And a person can be clothed or clothe themselves, which is by far the more common use, from Solomon in all his finery to the white-robed figures who fill the book of Revelation.
Because it simply means to put a garment on a body, the weight of any given verse falls on what the person is wearing. The verb stays plain while the clothing carries the meaning: sackcloth for mourning, a purple robe for mock royalty, white linen for purity and vindication, even a cloud or the sun as a figure of heavenly glory.
Nuances
1ato put clothes on someone else; to dress or provide clothing for another person
TranslatabilityDirect
Mat 25:36Mat 25:38Mat 25:43Luk 23:11Jhn 19:2
1bto be clothed or arrayed; to have a garment wrapped around oneself
carries the picture of wrapping or enveloping a body, so it stretches to a figure being wrapped in a cloud or a woman wrapped in the sunRev 10:1Rev 12:1
Both
both mean simply to put garments on a bodyMat 25:36
Only clothe
the plain English word suggests everyday dressing and can flatten the ceremonial or symbolic weight a garment carries in a given scene
“array”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“put on”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“wrap around”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“cast about”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How periballō differs from similar Greek words
ἐνδύωthe ordinary word for putting clothes on and the one Paul uses for the figure of putting on Christ or the new self; this word instead pictures a garment thrown or wrapped around, often an outer robe.
It pictures a robe thrown or wrapped around the body, so it is the verb for being arrayed in splendid clothing, from Solomon in his glory to the redeemed standing in white robes.Mat 6:29Rev 7:9Rev 4:4
It stretches past ordinary dress to cosmic covering, a figure enveloped by the sun or wrapped about with a cloud, where the covering is no garment at all.Rev 12:1Rev 10:1
Both
Both mean to put clothing on the body, and each is used for the robes forced onto Jesus during his trial and mockery.Mat 27:31Mrk 15:20Jhn 19:2Luk 23:11
Both describe being dressed in a garment that marks a status or role, such as a wedding guest's attire or a figure appearing in white.Mat 22:11Mrk 6:9Mrk 16:5Rev 19:13
It is the New Testament's verb for the metaphor of putting on a new identity or quality as if it were a garment: putting on Christ, the new self, or the armor of light.Gal 3:27Col 3:10Rom 13:14Eph 6:11
It describes the resurrection body, where what is perishable puts on imperishability and mortality puts on immortality, clothing that becomes the person's permanent state.1Co 15:531Co 15:54
Pictures a heavy stone slung around the neck as the means of drowning someone.Mrk 9:42Luk 17:2
Describes a person hemmed in or beset by something encircling them, whether a prisoner's chain, human weakness, or a surrounding crowd.Act 28:20Heb 5:2Heb 12:1
This is the everyday word for getting dressed, and it is regularly used of people clothing themselves: what to wear is the worry Jesus names, an angel tells Peter to wrap his own cloak around him, and the church at Laodicea is told to buy white clothes and put them on.Mat 6:31Act 12:8Rev 3:18
It describes how a figure already looks when he comes into view, so it works as a picture of someone's appearance rather than as an action done in the moment: a young man in a white robe, elders in white, a crowd in white robes, a rider in a robe dipped in blood.Mrk 16:5Rev 4:4Rev 7:9Rev 19:13
It is the word for the mercy of covering someone who has nothing to wear, which is why it carries the weight of the judgment scene where clothing the naked counts as caring for Christ himself.Mat 25:36Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
When it reaches past actual cloth, it still keeps the picture of a garment: an angel wrapped in a cloud and a woman wearing the sun are dressed in things no one could sew.Rev 10:1Rev 12:1
Both
Both begin with the same idea of "around", and both can name the act of putting a robe on the mocked king: John says the soldiers threw the purple robe around Jesus with one word, Matthew says they set the scarlet cloak on him with the other.Jhn 19:2Mat 27:28
Both are used of clothing that someone else puts on a person, so either can carry the sarcasm of dressing a prisoner as royalty.Luk 23:11Mat 27:28
Both take the trappings that mark rank as their object, whether the purple and scarlet worn by the woman in the vision or the crown set on Jesus in the mockery.Rev 17:4Mrk 15:17
It is not limited to clothing at all: a landowner sets a wall around his vineyard, and soldiers fix a sponge onto a stick. Anything can be set around anything.Mat 21:33Mrk 12:1Mat 27:48Jhn 19:29
With a person it adds one particular item rather than dressing the whole body: a crown of thorns pressed onto the head, a scarlet cloak thrown over a man they had just stripped.Mrk 15:17Mat 27:28
The action is always aimed at someone or something other than the person doing it. Nobody in the New Testament uses this word for putting something on himself.Mrk 15:36Mat 21:33Mat 27:28
It stretches to what cannot be worn or built at all, so Paul can speak of the honor we give to the parts of the body we think least presentable.1Co 12:23
periballō in the other biblical languages
לָבֵשׁHebrew“to clothe”the everyday Hebrew word for wearing or putting on clothes; this Greek word leans toward wrapping or draping a garment around the body.
pictures throwing a garment around the body, wrapping someone in a cloak or robeMrk 14:51Jhn 19:2Luk 23:11
is the dominant word for being arrayed in splendid or symbolic robes, especially the white garments and fine linen of the visions in RevelationRev 7:9Rev 19:8Rev 3:18
Both
both are ordinary verbs for putting clothes on a person, the Greek word being one regular rendering of the HebrewGen 3:21Mat 25:36
both describe arraying a person in fine or royal garmentsEst 6:9Luk 12:27
names the formal robing of a priest in his ordination vestmentsExo 28:41Lev 16:4
describes God's Spirit coming over a person, who is clothed with the SpiritJdg 6:341Ch 12:18
כָּסָהHebrew“to cover”the Hebrew word for covering something over; it overlaps with this word's image of enveloping or wrapping, but is broader than clothing alone.
names a mass of matter covering over or engulfing a surface: floodwaters over the mountains, the sea over Pharaoh's chariots, a cloud over the tentGen 7:19Exo 14:28Exo 40:34
carries the figurative covering of sin and the concealing of wrong: a sin covered so it is forgiven, or hatred hidden behind a liePsa 32:1Pro 28:13Pro 10:18
It is the ordinary word for getting dressed: putting garments on the body, or being clothed by someone else.Mat 25:36Mat 6:29Luk 12:27
It regularly describes being arrayed in symbolic or splendid robes, especially the white robes of the redeemed and royal or mocking purple.Rev 7:9Rev 3:5Jhn 19:2
Both
Both describe wrapping the body in clothing, and the Greek word is the natural rendering for the Hebrew act of draping a robe or mantle around a person.1Sa 28:14Mrk 14:51
Both extend from literal dress to being clothed with an abstract quality, worn over a person like a garment.Psa 109:19Rev 19:8
the plain, everyday act of putting clothes on a person or of being dressedMat 25:36Mat 6:29
being robed in a specific, often symbolic garment, from a mocking purple cloak to the white robes of the redeemedJhn 19:2Rev 7:9
Both
the image of a garment wrapped around a body, covering it completely; the Greek names the literal act of clothing, the Hebrew draws on the same picture when it says violence is worn like a garmentRev 19:13Psa 73:6
This is the everyday Greek word for getting dressed and for putting clothes on someone else, from what a person will wear tomorrow to the coat handed to a prisoner. The Hebrew word never does this ordinary work of dressing and clothing.Mat 6:31Mat 25:36Act 12:8Luk 12:27
A robe put on someone by another party announces that person's standing, whether it is honor granted or humiliation staged: white robes given to the faithful, and a mock royal robe thrown over Jesus by soldiers.Rev 3:5Rev 7:9Luk 23:11Jhn 19:2
It can wrap a figure in light, cloud, or blood as though these were clothing, so the covering itself becomes the description of the being who wears it.Rev 10:1Rev 12:1Rev 19:13
Both
Both words describe drawing a covering around a body so that what is underneath is hidden from view: Tamar wraps herself so Judah does not know her, and the young man in Gethsemane has only a linen cloth wrapped around him.Gen 38:14Mrk 14:51
The Hebrew word turns inward and describes a person being overcome to the point of collapse, wrapped in weakness the way a body is wrapped in cloth: children fainting in the streets, young people fainting from thirst, a man fainting under the sun. The Greek word never means this.Isa 51:20Amo 8:13Jon 4:8
It also covers a hard surface with something set into it, describing legs like pillars of ivory worked over with sapphire. That is decoration fixed onto an object, not a garment draped around a wearer.Sng 5:14
What scholars say about periballō
Standard lexica treat περιβάλλω as a transparent compound of περί (around) and βάλλω (throw, cast), yielding the basic sense to throw around and, of clothing, to put a garment around someone: BDAG organizes it as (1) transitive, to clothe or dress another, and (2) middle, to clothe oneself or be clothed, with the middle dominant in the New Testament. LSJ documents the wider classical range (to throw around, embrace, encompass, and of walls to build around), of which the New Testament preserves only the clothing sense. Louw and Nida place it in the domain of putting on clothing. The concentration in Revelation is stylistic: the perfect participle repeatedly describes figures already clothed in white robes, fine linen, or sackcloth, where the symbolic freight rests on the garment, not the verb.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. περιβάλλωlexicon
LSJ, s.v. περιβάλλωlexicon
Louw & Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, s.v. περιβάλλωlexicon
AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8
All attested forms of περιβάλλω
perfect middle-or-passive participle nominative f s