to welcome or accept: to receive a person or a circumstance to yourself willingly and gladly
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This verb builds on the ordinary word for receiving or welcoming (δέχομαι) and adds a turning toward what is received. When a person is the object, it means to welcome them warmly and treat them as one of your own: Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, and Paul asks the church to welcome Phoebe and to receive Epaphroditus with all joy.
When the object is a circumstance rather than a person, the same welcoming becomes a glad acceptance. The believers in Hebrews accepted the seizure of their property with joy, knowing they had a better and lasting possession; others refused to accept release from torture so that they might gain a better resurrection. In both directions the word carries a willing, even glad, embrace of what is handed to a person, rather than a grudging or merely passive taking.
Nuances
1ato welcome a person: to receive someone warmly and treat them as your own
Luk 15:2Rom 16:2Php 2:29
1bto accept a circumstance willingly: to take even a loss or hardship gladly rather than resist it
Heb 10:34Heb 11:35
2
to wait for or look for: to await something eagerly, ready to welcome it when it comes
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
Here the welcoming turn points forward in time. To wait for something with this word is not idle waiting but eager expectation: you are watching for what is coming and stand ready to receive it gladly the moment it arrives. Unlike the plainer verb for expecting (προσδοκάω), which can look toward dread as readily as hope, this word keeps the note of glad welcome in the waiting.
In the Gospels it becomes almost a badge of the devout who were watching for God to act. Simeon was waiting for the comfort of Israel, Anna spoke of the child to all who were waiting for the rescue of Jerusalem, and Joseph of Arimathea was waiting for God's kingdom. In the letters it names the Christian's forward look: waiting for the blessed hope and appearing of Christ, and waiting for his mercy that leads to eternal life. Even the plainest uses keep the note of readiness, as when servants told to wait for their master stand poised to open the door the moment he knocks.
can reach beyond greeting a person to gladly accepting a circumstance handed to youHeb 10:34
Both
both name receiving someone warmly and treating them as your ownLuk 15:2Rom 16:2
Only welcome
English "welcome" applies only to receiving a person, not to accepting a hardship
“look for”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“receive”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“accept”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How prosdechomai differs from similar Greek words
δέχομαιthe plain verb for receiving or welcoming, without the forward-leaning force; this word adds a turning toward what is received, whether a guest welcomed or a hope awaited
προσδοκάωthe general verb for expecting something to come, which can look toward dread as readily as hope; this word keeps the note of glad welcome in the waiting
ἀπεκδέχομαιan intensified verb for waiting eagerly, used by Paul for creation and believers groaning for final redemption; nearly the same eager expectation, with an added strain of longing
It commonly means to welcome a person rather than to wait for anything. Jesus is criticized for welcoming outsiders, and Paul asks churches to give his coworkers exactly this kind of reception.Luk 15:2Rom 16:2Php 2:29
It also covers accepting or refusing what is handed to you. Believers took the loss of their property well, and tortured witnesses turned down the release that was offered them.Heb 10:34Heb 11:35
Even when it does mean waiting, the waiting can be ordinary and short. Servants keep watch for a master coming home from a wedding, and an ambush party stands ready for an answer they expect that same day.Luk 12:36Act 23:21
Both
Both describe hopeful expectation of what God has promised, treated as an act of faith rather than as idle delay: Paul waits with patience, and Simeon spends his life looking for Israel's comfort.Rom 8:25Luk 2:25
Both are used for looking ahead to the return of Christ, so either can stand behind an English "waiting for" in a passage about his appearing.Heb 9:28Tit 2:13
Both take resurrection hope as their object, naming the future bodily rescue that believers have not yet received.Rom 8:23Act 24:15
Its whole range is waiting. It never slides over into taking a person in or accepting something offered, so every use leaves the reader leaning toward something that has not arrived yet: the unveiling of God's children, the revealing of Jesus, his second appearing.Rom 8:191Co 1:7Heb 9:28
It stretches the waiting out over long time and sets it beside endurance rather than excitement alone. Paul pairs it directly with patience, and Peter uses it of God's own patience holding off through the years the ark was being built.Rom 8:251Pe 3:20
The thing waited for is consistently something only God can produce, so the waiting person contributes nothing but the waiting: a standing before God still to be given, a rescuer who arrives from heaven, a body still to be set free.Gal 5:5Php 3:20Rom 8:23
Only this verb faces forward and waits for something that has not arrived yet: the kingdom of God, the comfort promised to Israel, the blessed hope, the mercy of Christ at the end, a master expected back from a wedding.Mrk 15:43Luk 2:25Luk 12:36Tit 2:13Jud 1:21
It can take something painful as its object and still mean acceptance, which is why it also works in the negative: believers took the seizure of their property with joy, and others refused the release offered them so they might rise to something better.Heb 10:34Heb 11:35
It is the word chosen when the welcome itself is the scandal, in the muttered charge that this man takes in sinners and even shares a table with them.Luk 15:2
Both
Both name the welcome a church is asked to give a fellow believer arriving from somewhere else, on the strength of a letter or a commendation.Act 18:27Rom 16:2Php 2:29
In both, the reception is warm rather than merely polite, which is why each is often rendered "welcome" rather than "receive": one arrival is met gladly, another is to be received with all joy.Act 21:17Php 2:29
Neither verb is limited to receiving people. A preached message, a set of reforms, a shared hope about the resurrection, and even a loss can all be what is taken in.Act 2:41Act 24:15Heb 10:34
This is the verb for taking in what someone says and acting on it. Three thousand people in Jerusalem gladly took Peter's message to heart and were baptized that same day.Act 2:41
It carries the formal language of public thanks, the way subjects acknowledge a governor's reforms with gratitude everywhere they are felt.Act 24:3
It names the greeting given at the moment of arrival, with the crowd or the congregation already gathered and waiting: a crowd closing in on Jesus as he comes back across the lake, believers meeting a travel party at the end of its journey.Luk 8:40Luk 9:11Act 21:17
It can describe hospitality kept up as a settled practice over a long stretch of time, as Paul went on receiving everyone who came to him for two full years in his rented lodging.Act 28:30
It is the ordinary word for taking a person in when they turn up: opening the door to them, sitting down to eat with them, treating them as one of your own. This is why the Pharisees used it as a complaint about Jesus, and why Paul used it when he sent Phoebe and Epaphroditus to churches that were to make room for them.Luk 15:2Rom 16:2Php 2:29
It also covers accepting or turning down what is put in front of you. One group took the seizing of their property gladly; others refused the release they were offered so as to gain something better.Heb 10:34Heb 11:35
Even where it does mean waiting, the waiting is bent toward getting hold of something that will be handed over, so the same word can describe men lying in ambush who stand ready for the word they expect from the commander, and people who hold a hope as their own.Act 23:21Act 24:15
Both
Both are used for looking ahead to something God has promised and has not yet done. Either word can carry the long hope of a city God builds, an enemy put underfoot, comfort for Israel, or the appearing of Christ.Heb 10:13Heb 11:10Luk 2:25Mrk 15:43Tit 2:13Jud 1:21
Both are used of waiting for a person to show up. Paul waited in Athens for his companions and told Corinth he was waiting for Timothy, and servants are pictured waiting for their master to come home from the wedding.Act 17:161Co 16:11Luk 12:36
All the weight falls on the stretch of time itself. The word says nothing about what happens when the thing finally arrives, only that the one waiting stays where he is while the delay runs on: the disabled man lying by the pool until the water stirs, the farmer over his field until the rains come.Jhn 5:3Jas 5:7
It can be a plain practical instruction about timing, with no warmth in it at all: do not start yet, hold off until the rest of you have arrived. English Bibles here often render it "wait for one another".1Co 11:33
prosdechomai in the other biblical languages
קָוָהHebrew“to await”the main Hebrew verb for waiting on the LORD in hope, as in those who wait for the LORD renewing their strength; the Greek word carries the same expectant hope, with an added readiness to welcome what is awaited
קָבַלHebrew“to receive”a later Hebrew verb for receiving or accepting something offered; it overlaps the welcoming sense of the Greek word but lacks its forward-looking use
What scholars say about prosdechomai
BDAG assigns the verb two principal senses: to receive favorably (welcome, accept), covering both the reception of persons (Luke 15:2;Rom 16:2;Phil 2:29) and the willing acceptance of circumstances (Heb 10:34; 11:35), and to wait for, expect, look for, covering the expectant texts (Luke 2:25, 38; 12:36; 23:51; Mark 15:43;Acts 23:21; 24:15; Titus 2:13; Jude 21). Grundmann, treating the whole dechomai word group in TDNT, stresses that the prefixed form intensifies the base verb toward an attitude of welcoming acceptance, which in the future-oriented uses becomes an expectant readiness bound up with messianic and eschatological hope, especially in Luke's portraits of Simeon, Anna, and Joseph of Arimathea. Louw and Nida likewise split the domain between receive/welcome and hope/look forward to. Marshall notes that Luke's repeated use of the verb marks out a circle of pious Israelites awaiting God's redemption.
Sources
BDAG, s.v. προσδέχομαιlexicon
Walter Grundmann, "δέχομαι, δοχή, λαμβάνω, προσδέχομαι κτλ.," TDNT 2:50-59theological-dictionary
Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (1988), 34.53; 25.62lexicon
I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (New International Greek Testament Commentary, 1978), on Luke 2:25commentary
AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8
All attested forms of προσδέχομαι
present middle-or-passive participle nominative m p