to call someone to yourself: to summon a person to come into your presence
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
This verb pictures one person calling another over to where they are. It always turns the action back on the speaker, so it does not mean simply to shout or to name someone: it means to draw a person to your own side. Jesus calls his disciples over, a master calls in a servant, an officer calls for a soldier, a sick believer calls for the elders of the church. In each case the one summoned is expected to come and stand before the one who called.
The same act takes on a deeper weight when God or the Holy Spirit is the one calling. Then the summons is not to step across a room but to belong to God, or to take up a task he assigns. The word itself carries no special machinery for this: the force in those verses comes from who is calling and to what, not from a different meaning of the verb. It is the everyday act of calling a person to oneself, raised to its highest use.
Nuances
1ato summon a person to come to you, calling them over into your presence
it specifically means to call a person to yourself, so the one summoned is expected to come and stand before youMat 10:1Mrk 6:7
Both
both name the act of summoning someone by voice to comeMrk 15:44
Only call
in plain English to call can mean to name someone, to telephone, or to cry out, none of which this word means
“summon”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“call for”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How proskaleō differs from similar Greek words
καλέωThe plain verb to call: to name, invite, or summon, and the standard word for God's call to salvation. This word is its narrower cousin, always meaning to call a person specifically to oneself.
Names the deliberate act of summoning particular people to one's own side or presence, often to commission or instruct them: Jesus calls the twelve to himself before sending them out, and again calls them up the mountain to appoint them.Mat 10:1Mrk 3:13
Used of a superior calling a subordinate in for an accounting or a charge: the steward summons each of his master's debtors, and the Holy Spirit summons Barnabas and Saul for the work.Luk 16:5Act 13:2
Both
Both can mean to call a person to come, summoning them by voice: Jesus calls James and John from their boat, and elsewhere calls the crowd or disciples to himself.Mat 4:21Mrk 7:14
Means to give a name to a person, an everyday use προσκαλέω never carries: the angel tells Mary to name her son Jesus, and Elizabeth's neighbors expect the baby to be named after his father.Mat 1:21Luk 1:13
Means to invite a guest to a meal or banquet: the king's slaves go out to invite the wedding guests, and Jesus tells how a host invites the lowly rather than the prominent.Mat 22:3Luk 14:13
Carries the weighty theological sense of God calling people to himself and to salvation, a settled use in the letters that προσκαλέω does not bear: those God foreknew he also called, and God is faithful who called you into fellowship with his Son.Rom 8:301Co 1:9
προσφωνέωTo call out to someone or address them aloud, often across a distance. This word goes further: it summons the person to come and stand before the caller.
Summons a person to leave where they are and come stand before the caller; the point is the approach, not just the sound of the voice.Mat 10:1Mrk 3:13Mrk 6:7Luk 18:16
Used of a divine summons that sets someone apart for salvation or a task, a calling to God's own side.Act 2:39Act 13:2Act 16:10
Both
Both direct a spoken call at a specific person or group, and each can gather disciples to the speaker.Mrk 3:13Luk 6:13
Calls out to or addresses someone aloud, often across a distance, without necessarily making them come; the emphasis is the raised voice reaching a hearer.Mat 11:16Luk 7:32
Addresses a crowd aloud to gain a hearing before speaking at length.Act 21:40Act 22:2
Used of God calling people to himself and calling workers to a job, a summons that is nothing like fetching someone from across town.Act 2:39Act 13:2Act 16:10
The one calling is already on the scene and simply draws people over to where he is, so the call and the coming happen face to face with no messenger in between.Mrk 3:13Mat 18:2Luk 18:16
Regularly gathers a whole crowd in close so they can hear teaching, as when Jesus calls them over and says "Hear and understand".Mat 15:10Mrk 7:14Mrk 8:34
Turns up inside Jesus' stories, where a master calls in a servant or a debtor to settle up with him.Mat 18:32Luk 15:26Luk 16:5
Both
Both describe a person in authority calling someone to come to him, and the one called comes: a governor with a prisoner, a governor with an officer.Act 24:24Mrk 15:44
Luke uses both for the ordinary business of getting a needed person to show up during Paul's arrest and hearings.Act 25:3Act 23:17
In both, the calling is only the setup: the point of the scene is what the one who called says once the person arrives.Act 20:1Act 6:2
The sending is part of the word: someone dispatches messengers on a trip to go get a person who is somewhere else, and the story names the men who go and the town they go to.Act 10:5Act 11:13
Fits official business with a prisoner: a Roman governor has Paul brought up out of custody for private hearings, and does it over and over.Act 24:24Act 24:26
Can be the favor one party asks a ruler to grant, moving a man from one city to another, here as cover for an ambush on the road.Act 25:3
The one calling is himself the destination. People are summoned to his side, and the scene stays on him and the person he called rather than on any group that forms.Mrk 3:13Mat 18:2Luk 18:16
It can pick out one person, or just two, for a private word or an errand, calling them over one at a time.Luk 15:26Luk 16:5Luk 7:18Act 23:17
Only this word is used of God calling people to himself, where the call is a lasting claim on a life or an assignment rather than an invitation to one meeting.Act 2:39Act 13:2Act 16:10
A person in charge can use it to have someone brought in to answer for what he has done or to be questioned.Mat 18:32Mrk 15:44
Both
Both describe Jesus getting the twelve around him and then commissioning them, so closely that one gospel tells the scene with one word and another gospel with the other.Mat 10:1Mrk 6:7Luk 9:1
Both belong to official life, where calling people in is a formal act with weight behind it: the same chapter of Acts uses one word for convening the ruling council and the other for having the accused brought in.Act 5:40Act 5:21Luk 23:13
Both name a deliberate act of a speaker whose word alone makes people come, whether that is a crowd drawn in to hear teaching or a household drawn in to share good news.Mrk 7:14Mrk 8:34Luk 15:6
The point is the assembly itself: a whole body is brought together into one place so that it can act as a body, and the text stresses how complete the gathering is.Mrk 15:16Act 5:21Luk 23:13
It works among equals, with no rank involved, when someone gathers friends, neighbors, or relatives to share news and celebrate together.Luk 15:6Luk 15:9Act 10:24
The one calling need not have any authority over the people he gathers; even a prisoner can ask the leading men of a city to meet with him.Act 28:17
proskaleō in the other biblical languages
קָרָאHebrew“to call: call to”The broad Hebrew verb for calling: to summon, proclaim, name, or read aloud. This Greek word covers only the summoning edge of that range, calling a person to oneself.
Always draws the person to the speaker's own side. The word carries a reflexive force, to call someone to oneself, so a superior summons people close in order to instruct or charge them face to face.Mat 15:10Mrk 3:13
Reaches beyond a physical summons to God's call to salvation and to a task or office, naming the people or the work God draws to himself.Act 2:39Act 13:2
Both
Both words summon a person to come into the presence of the one speaking, whether an official calling someone to appear or a teacher calling a hearer near.Gen 12:18Mat 18:2
Gives a name to a person or thing, an act of naming that the Greek summoning word never covers.Gen 1:5Gen 2:19
Proclaims or announces publicly, including calling on the name of the LORD in worship.Gen 4:26Isa 61:1
Reads a written text aloud to an audience, a sense with no counterpart in the Greek word.Exo 24:7Neh 8:8
What scholars say about proskaleō
BDAG divides the entry into (a) to call to oneself, summon, and (b) to call or invite for a purpose, the latter covering the divine call in Acts 2:39; 13:2; 16:10. The verb is a compound of the preposition pros (to, toward) with kaleo (to call), and in the New Testament it occurs only in the middle voice, giving the reflexive nuance of calling someone to oneself. K. L. Schmidt treats it within the kaleo word group and notes that, unlike kaleo, proskaleomai does not develop into the technical vocabulary of election, though God is its subject in the three Acts passages. Louw and Nida class the ordinary sense under summoning someone into one's presence.