At its core this verb moves separate things toward a single point. It is the opposite of scattering, and the New Testament often sets the two side by side: what is gathered is kept, what is scattered is lost.
The word works in two directions. When the object is things, it means to collect or gather in: a farmer storing grain in his barn, fishermen pulling in a full net, disciples picking up the leftover scraps so nothing is wasted. When the object is people, it means to call a group together, and in its passive form it simply means that a crowd or council came together and met.
The same image carries the New Testament's picture of the last days. Just as a harvester gathers wheat into the barn, God will gather his scattered people into one, and at the end the nations and even the birds are gathered together for judgment and for battle. Behind every use stands the same simple motion: bringing what is apart into one place.
Nuances
1ato gather in or collect things: crops, fish, fragments, or possessions brought into one place
to take someone in, to welcome a stranger as a guest
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled
In the scene of the sheep and the goats, the king commends those who saw him hungry and fed him, thirsty and gave him drink, a stranger and took him in. That last phrase uses this verb in a special way that the rest of the New Testament does not.
Here the word is not about collecting a crowd but about one person opening a door to another. To gather a stranger in is to bring him off the road and under your roof, to give him shelter and a place at the table. It is the warm, personal end of the verb's basic idea of bringing together: instead of grain into a barn or a council into a room, it is a homeless traveler welcomed into a home.
The sense grows naturally out of the everyday duty of hospitality in the ancient world, where receiving a stranger was a sacred obligation. Jesus identifies himself with that stranger, so that taking in the traveler turns out to be taking in the Lord himself.
in the sheep and goats parable the verb means to welcome a stranger into one's home, a sense the word carries nowhere else in the New TestamentMat 25:35Mat 25:43
Both
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Only took in
the English phrase took in can also mean deceived, which has nothing to do with the welcoming sense here
How sunagō differs from similar Greek words
ἐπισυνάγωan intensified form built on this same verb, used especially of God gathering his scattered people together, as a hen gathers her chicks
The ordinary, all-purpose word for collecting things together, used for harvesting and storing crops or produce as much as for people.Mat 6:26Mat 13:30
Describes a formal assembly being convened, officials or a council called into session to deliberate or act.Mat 26:3Act 4:5
Extends to taking a stranger in, welcoming and sheltering a person rather than simply collecting a crowd.Mat 25:35Mat 25:43
Both
Both describe people being brought together into one place, a crowd or company assembled at a single spot.Mrk 1:33Mrk 5:21
Names a gathering of what is scattered back into one place, the pulling-together of people spread across distances into a single body.Mat 24:31Mrk 13:27
Carries warmth and protective intent, picturing the longing to draw the vulnerable under one's care, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.Mat 23:37Luk 13:34
συλλέγωto gather by picking out and selecting, as one pulls weeds from among the wheat, rather than simply bringing a group together
The ordinary word for people coming together in one place: a crowd packed around a door, a council of leaders in session, believers meeting to pray.Mrk 2:2Mat 26:3Act 4:31Mat 18:20
Reaches into hospitality, where taking a person in is rendered "welcomed" or "took me in": a stranger brought under someone's roof rather than left outside.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
Covers storing what has been collected, putting a crop safely into a barn or saving the leftover pieces so nothing is wasted.Mat 3:12Mat 6:26Luk 12:18Jhn 6:12
Used of massing for battle, with kings and nations called together to one spot for war.Rev 16:14Rev 19:19Rev 20:8
Both
Both name the plain act of bringing scattered things together at harvest, and Jesus sets them side by side in one sentence: pick out the weeds first, then bring the wheat into the barn.Mat 13:30
Both belong to the same picture of a final sorting, one crop pulled out to be burned and the other brought in to be kept.Mat 13:30
Always picking things off or out of the place where they sit: fruit pulled from a bush, weeds pulled out of a standing field of wheat.Mat 7:16Luk 6:44Mat 13:28
Carries a sorting edge. The picking pulls one kind away from another so the unwanted part can be burned and only the good is kept.Mat 13:40Mat 13:41Mat 13:48
Someone is always doing the picking to something else. The word never describes a group coming together on its own, and what is picked has no say in it.Mat 13:29Mat 13:41
συγκαλέωto call people together by summoning them, stressing the spoken call rather than the resulting assembly
Collects things as readily as people: grain into the barn, good fish into containers, leftover pieces of bread, a harvested crop.Mat 3:12Mat 13:47Jhn 6:12Jhn 4:36
Describes people converging on their own, with nobody issuing a call: crowds press in around Jesus, and believers simply come together in one place.Mrk 2:2Mrk 4:1Jhn 20:19Act 20:7
Covers piling up and storing what has been collected, which is why it turns up in the parables about barns, hoarded harvests, and profit taken where nothing was sown.Luk 12:17Luk 12:18Mat 25:24Luk 15:13
Stretches to taking a person in under your roof, which is how it is rendered "welcomed" or "took in" when a stranger is given shelter.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
Carries the massed gatherings of the last days, where nations are brought before the judge and armies are drawn to one battlefield.Mat 25:32Rev 16:16Rev 19:19Rev 20:8
Both
Both describe an official body brought into session by the men in charge, and the Gospels and Acts use them for the same councils that move against Jesus and the apostles.Act 5:21Luk 23:13Mat 26:57Act 4:5
Both can bring a circle of guests into one house for an occasion, one word for the invitation that goes out and the other for the roomful that results.Act 10:24Luk 15:9Mat 22:10
Names the summons itself: someone with standing sends out a call, and the group exists only because that call went out.Luk 9:1Mrk 15:16Act 5:21
Its object is always people. In every one of its eight uses someone calls persons to come, never crops, fish, money, or leftovers.Luk 23:13Act 28:17Luk 15:6
Fits the warm, personal invitation, where a host sends word to named friends, neighbors, and relatives so they can share an occasion.Luk 15:6Luk 15:9Act 10:24
The ordinary word for physically gathering people into one place, calling a crowd or a council or a congregation together.Mat 2:4Mat 22:34
Used for collecting things into a container or store, harvesting grain into the barn or fragments into baskets.Mat 3:12Jhn 6:12
Carries the warm sense of welcoming and taking someone in as a guest, receiving the stranger into one's home.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38
Both
Both bring many separate things into one. One gathers them into a single place or a single head; the other draws them up into a single summary or a single uniting point.Eph 1:10Jhn 11:52
Brings many things together into a single summary or under one head, a mental and conceptual unifying rather than a physical one. The many commandments are drawn up into one statement of love.Rom 13:9
Names the cosmic act of bringing everything in heaven and earth to a head in Christ, so that all things find their single uniting point in him.Eph 1:10
Its dominant use is gathering people together into one place: convening a council, a crowd, or an assembly.Mat 2:4Mat 26:3Act 4:26Act 15:6
Brings goods or produce together into storage after harvest: into a barn, a vessel, or a net.Mat 3:12Mat 13:30Luk 12:18Jhn 6:12
Extends to taking a stranger in as a guest, receiving someone into one's home.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
Both
Both name stages of the same harvest labor and are set side by side in harvest imagery: one cuts the ripe crop, the other gathers it in.Mat 6:26Jhn 4:36
Both appear together in the reproach of taking a yield where no work was put in: reaping where one did not sow and gathering where one did not scatter.Mat 25:24Mat 25:26
Means to bring separate things or people together into one place: harvest into barns, fish into vessels, a crowd into an assembly.Mat 3:12Mat 13:47Luk 12:18
Names the convening of people, whether a hostile council or the gathered church, and reaches to the final gathering of the nations at the judgment.Mat 26:57Act 14:27Mat 25:32
Both
Both are compound verbs of bringing together, so each can picture more being brought into one place or body: people joined to a group, a harvest collected into a barn.Act 2:41Mat 13:30
Means to increase something by putting more to it: it adds to a number, a lifespan, or a measure, not only to people.Mat 6:27Mrk 4:24Luk 19:11
In Acts it is the word for the church growing as new believers are added to the body that already exists.Act 2:41Act 2:47Act 5:14
sunagō in the other biblical languages
קָבַץHebrew“to gather”the common Hebrew verb for gathering people or things together into one place, which the Greek Old Testament often renders with this word
covers welcoming a stranger into one's home as hospitality, a sense absent from the Hebrew wordMat 25:35Mat 25:38
used for the Christian assembly gathering in Jesus' name, whether for worship, discipline, or discernmentMat 18:201Co 5:4
Both
both describe gathering dispersed people into one place, whether for assembly, battle, or a common purpose: the Greek word is the standard LXX rendering of the HebrewEzk 39:17Rev 19:17
carries the distinctive prophetic promise that God will regather his scattered people from exile among the nations and restore them to their landDeu 30:3Jer 31:10
used for accumulating wealth or provisions over time, gathering material goods into storageGen 41:48Pro 13:11
אָסַףHebrew“to gather”the Hebrew verb to gather in or take away, used both of harvesting crops and of gathering a person to their people in death
It very often describes people converging on a place of their own accord, so it names the meeting itself rather than the work of somebody rounding others up.Mat 13:2Mrk 2:2Mat 18:20Jhn 20:19Act 4:31
It carries a hospitality sense with no counterpart in the Hebrew word: taking a stranger in, gathering a homeless guest into your own house and table.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
It is the everyday farming and fishing word for bringing a crop or a catch in under cover, whether grain into a barn, fish hauled up in a net, or leftover bread saved from waste.Mat 3:12Mat 6:26Mat 13:30Mat 13:47Jhn 6:12
Both
Both are the plain word for calling scattered people into one place at someone's order, whether a queen summoning the Jews of a city, a king mustering labourers, or an official convening a council.Est 4:161Ch 22:2Mat 2:4Act 15:6
Both carry the hope of God bringing his own scattered people home and making them one again, which is why the Greek word answers so naturally to the Hebrew one when the New Testament speaks of that ingathering.Psa 147:2Ezk 39:28Jhn 11:52
Both can gather people for a reckoning, herding them together not to shelter them but so that judgment can fall on them where they stand.Ezk 22:21Mat 25:32Rev 16:16
It can mean piling things up so that what you end up with is a heap or a hoard rather than a gathered company: sea water banked up like a wall, stones stacked in a field, silver and gold stored away, wealth stockpiled by a man who will not enjoy it.Psa 33:7Ecc 3:5Ecc 2:8Ecc 2:26
It can turn back on the person doing the gathering, describing someone drawing himself in to fit under a covering that is too small to wrap around him.Isa 28:20
Reaches beyond people to things: crops brought into a barn, fish hauled in by a net, leftover food collected up. It is the everyday verb for pulling scattered items into one place.Mat 3:12Mat 13:47Jhn 6:12
Often names an informal or hostile huddle rather than a summoned body: officials meeting to plot, a mob closing in, soldiers massing around a prisoner.Mat 2:4Mat 26:3Mat 27:27
Both
Both name the plain act of bringing people together into one place so they stand as a single group.Num 20:8Mat 13:2
Summons the whole community of Israel as a formal, covenant body, called together to hear God, worship, or decide together, not merely a random crowd.Deu 4:10Num 8:91Ki 8:1
Someone calls other people together: a ruler convenes the priests and scholars for a hearing (Matthew 2:4), the leaders and elders meet in Jerusalem (Acts 4:5), the court assembles at the high priest's house (Matthew 26:57), and the missionaries call the whole congregation together to report (Acts 14:27). The Hebrew word never has one person summoning a body of people like this.Mat 2:4Act 4:5Mat 26:57Act 14:27
It covers bringing in a harvest and storing it: wheat carried into the barn (Matthew 3:12,Matthew 13:30), birds that neither reap nor stock a storehouse (Matthew 6:26), a rich farmer with no room left for his crop (Luke 12:17,Luke 12:18). The Hebrew word is used for scraps picked up off open ground, not for a crop taken in and kept.Mat 3:12Mat 13:30Mat 6:26Luk 12:18
It stretches to taking a person in and giving a stranger a place to stay, which is why English Bibles often render it "welcomed" or "took in" rather than "gathered" (Matthew 25:35,Matthew 25:38,Matthew 25:43). Nothing like this hospitality sense attaches to the Hebrew word.Mat 25:35Mat 25:38Mat 25:43
It can name God's own work of drawing people who were scattered into one body, and the final assembling of all the nations for judgment (John 11:52,Matthew 25:32). Even the ordinary meeting of two or three believers is described with it (Matthew 18:20). The Hebrew word carries none of this weight.Jhn 11:52Mat 25:32Mat 18:20
Both
Both name collecting loose pieces that are lying about and bringing them into one heap. The widow is picking up sticks at the town gate (1 Kings 17:10) much as the disciples pick up the leftover pieces of bread and fill twelve baskets (John 6:12,John 6:13).1Ki 17:10Jhn 6:12Jhn 6:13
Both are used of collecting dry material for a fire. The widow gathers two sticks to cook with (1 Kings 17:12) and enslaved workers gather stubble to fire bricks (Exodus 5:12), while the withered branches cut off the vine are gathered and thrown into the fire (John 15:6).1Ki 17:12Exo 5:12Jhn 15:6
Each word has one line where a whole people is told to come together as one. Zephaniah calls a shameless nation to pull itself together (Zephaniah 2:1), the single place the Hebrew word gathers people rather than sticks, and the Greek word covers the same idea often, from earth's rulers massing against the Lord (Acts 4:26) to all the nations assembled before the throne (Matthew 25:32). This is the narrow point where the two overlap.Zep 2:1Act 4:26Mat 25:32
Its object is almost always small, dry, worthless material lying on the ground: straw and stubble for brickmaking (Exodus 5:7,Exodus 5:12), firewood picked up stick by stick (Numbers 15:32,1 Kings 17:10). This is scavenging what is loose underfoot, a much narrower job than the broad Greek "bring together".Exo 5:7Exo 5:12Num 15:321Ki 17:10
The work it names is hard and often desperate. Enslaved brickmakers are sent to find their own straw with no cut in their quota (Exodus 5:7,Exodus 5:12), and a starving widow is picking up two sticks to cook one last meal before she and her son die (1 Kings 17:12). The Greek word carries no such note of poverty or forced labor.Exo 5:7Exo 5:121Ki 17:12
Because what it collects is scarce, the gatherers themselves have to spread out to search for it: the people scatter across the whole land of Egypt in order to do this gathering (Exodus 5:12). The Greek word always points the other way, toward one place.Exo 5:12
It is the word in the one story about breaking the Sabbath by working: a man is caught picking up sticks on the seventh day and brought before Moses and Aaron (Numbers 15:32,Numbers 15:33). The action is so plainly labor that no one argues the point.Num 15:32Num 15:33
What scholars say about sunagō
BDAG divides the verb into the basic transitive sense of bringing together or collecting (things and persons), the very common passive intransitive use for assembling or meeting, and the distinct sense of receiving as a guest, attested for the New Testament only at Matthew 25:35, 38, 43. The noun synagogue derives from this verb. In the Septuagint it regularly renders Hebrew qabats and asaph, and it carries strong eschatological overtones from the prophetic promise that the Lord will gather his scattered people, a theme that surfaces in John 11:52 and in the gathering of the nations in Matthew 24 to 25 and Revelation. The hospitality sense at Matthew 25 is well established in the lexica, though some interpreters read it more loosely as simply welcoming.