StrongerBible

tameion

ταμεῖον

GreekG5009“closet, inner room, ...”

Appears 4 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 6:6Mat 24:26Luk 12:3Luk 12:24
Word studyResearch-gradetah-MEE-onnoun

What tameion means

the innermost room of a house: the secluded back chamber, used both to store what is valuable and to be alone and unseen

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled

The word names one feature of an ancient house: its deepest interior room. In everyday speech it usually meant the storeroom or pantry, the place where grain, money, and valuables were kept. Because that room was the most interior one and often the only room that could be locked, it was also the most private space in the house.

That double duty is why the same word can mean "storeroom" in one verse and "private room" a few lines later. Luke 12 shows both within a single chapter: birds have no storeroom in which to hoard (12:24), yet whatever is whispered in the inner rooms will one day be shouted from the rooftops (12:3).

When Jesus tells people to go into their inner room and shut the door to pray (Matthew 6:6), he is naming the humblest, most ordinary private space, even the back pantry of a one-room house, as the place to meet God unseen. The force of the image is a turn away from showy public prayer, not a rule about which room to use.

Nuances

1aan inner private room: the secluded back chamber where one goes to be alone, hidden, or unheard
Mat 6:6Mat 24:26Luk 12:3
Mat 6:6

Whether the inner room of Matthew 6:6 is specifically the storeroom of a modest Galilean house or more broadly any private inner chamber, such as a bedroom.

  • majorityThe storeroom: in a one- or two-room peasant house the small interior pantry was the only room with a door that could be locked, so Jesus names it as a private space available even to the poor.; J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT), pp. 239, 244; U. Luz, Matthew 1-7 (Hermeneia), pp. 300-301
  • minorityAny private inner chamber, including a bedroom, following the Greek Old Testament's use of the word for the Hebrew inner room.; J. A. Broadus, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew; A. Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew
1ba storeroom: the interior room or granary where grain, food, and provisions are kept
Luk 12:24

What scholars say about tameion

The noun derives from ταμίας ("steward, dispenser"), an agent-noun from τέμνω / τάμνω ("to cut, apportion"), with the locative suffix -εῖον: literally "the place belonging to the steward," the room from which goods and rations were measured out (Frisk; Chantraine; Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek). Lexicographers accordingly treat storeroom/treasury as the historically primary sense and "private chamber" as a secondary development, since the room holding valuables was by nature the deepest, most lockable interior space. The older four-syllable spelling ταμιεῖον contracts to ταμεῖον from the first century BCE onward, a routine Koine syncopation with no semantic consequence (Blass-Debrunner; Moulton, Prolegomena; Thackeray). Documentary papyri (Moulton and Milligan, Vocabulary of the Greek Testament) show the everyday sense to be storehouse, warehouse, or fiscal office, not "bedroom"; the chamber sense is a specialization of literary and especially Jewish-biblical Greek. The Septuagint uses the word about 35 times, most often rendering Hebrew חֶדֶר ("inner chamber"), while also carrying the storeroom sense (Deuteronomy 28:8; Proverbs 3:10); Muraoka and LEH list inner chamber, storeroom, and treasury. Two Septuagint texts shape the New Testament uses: Isaiah 26:20 ("enter your chambers and shut your door"), widely read as the controlling background to Matthew 6:6, and 2 Kings 6:12 with Ecclesiastes 10:20, the wisdom motif that nothing whispered in the inner room stays secret, behind Luke 12:3. On Matthew 6:6, the majority (Bornhauser; Jeremias; Schweizer; Hagner, WBC 33A; Keener; France, NICNT; Morris; Luz, Hermeneia) identify the room as the peasant storeroom, the only lockable room in a one- or two-room house; a minority (Broadus; Plummer) keep the broader inner-chamber gloss. Standard commentators on Luke (Fitzmyer; Marshall, NIGTC; Nolland, WBC 35B; Bovon; Bock, BECNT) are unanimous that 12:3 means inner room and 12:24 means storeroom. Notably, TDNT has no entry on the word: its theological weight in Matthew 6:6 owes more to preachers than to lexicographers.

In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, s.v. ταμεῖονlexicon
  • LSJ, s.v. ταμιεῖονlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. ταμεῖονlexicon
  • T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, s.v. ταμιεῖονlexicon
  • R. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010), s.v. ταμίαςlexicon
  • W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, Matthew (ICC), vol. 1, pp. 579-80commentary
  • U. Luz, Matthew 1-7 (Hermeneia), pp. 300-301commentary
  • D. A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (WBC 33A), p. 142commentary
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT), pp. 239, 244commentary
  • I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC), pp. 511-12commentary
  • J. Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34 (WBC 35B), pp. 676-78commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ταμεῖον

dative n p

ταμείοις

Mat 24:26, Luk 12:3

accusative n s

ταμεῖόν

Mat 6:6

nominative n s

ταμεῖον

Luk 12:24