A neighbour (as adjoining one's ground); by implication, a friend
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G1069 names a neighbor in the plain sense of a person who lives or stands nearby. The word appears only four times in the governed New Testament witness, and those uses are modest in number but clear in social texture.
Reader summary
Full entry for γείτων (G1069) · Open the biblical lexicon
G1069 names a neighbor in the plain sense of a person who lives or stands nearby. The word appears only four times in the governed New Testament witness, and those uses are modest in number but clear in social texture.
The BSB source-word alignment has 4 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include neighbors (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Luke 14:12. Its strongest book concentrations include Luke (3), John (1).
G1069 names a neighbor in the plain sense of a person who lives or stands nearby. The word appears only four times in the governed New Testament witness, and those uses are modest in number but clear in social texture. In John 9, neighbors recognize the man who had formerly begged and ask whether the healed man is the same person. In Luke 14, Jesus names rich neighbors among the people a host might invite when he expects repayment.
In Luke 15, neighbors are called to share the joy of a lost sheep and a lost coin being found. These scenes show that proximity is the word’s starting point, while the passage supplies the moral and communal weight. A neighbor may be an observer who must reckon with a changed life, a person included in a pattern of reciprocal hospitality, or a nearby witness invited into rejoicing.
G1069 is therefore narrower than a complete theology of neighbor-love. It does not by itself define the command to love, settle the limits of hospitality, or identify every person to whom Christian mercy is owed. Related terms such as G4139 and the Hebrew H7453 carry their own ranges and contexts. Still, the word helps teachers notice that Jesus’ ministry and parables assume ordinary social networks.
God’s work is seen and discussed among people who live near one another. The church should not despise small circles of recognition, invitation, and shared joy. Nor should it treat neighbors as an audience whose approval must be managed. Read G1069 by asking who is near, what the neighbors see, what invitation they receive, and whether the community responds with curiosity, reciprocity, or joy.
G1069 identifies nearby neighbors in four New Testament scenes. The term moves from eyewitness recognition to guarded hospitality and then to communal celebration, showing how ordinary proximity becomes a setting for testimony, generosity, and shared joy.
At this, his neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging began to ask, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?”
The neighbors recognize the man’s former condition and become part of the public question surrounding Jesus’ healing. Their proximity makes them witnesses, though their question is not yet a full confession of what God has done.
Then Jesus said to the man who had invited Him, “When you host a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or brothers or relatives or rich neighbors. Otherwise, they may invite you in return, and you will be repaid.
Jesus exposes the repayment logic that can govern a banquet. Rich neighbors are not condemned for being neighbors; they illustrate hospitality arranged around reciprocal advantage rather than generous welcome.
Comes home, and calls together his friends and neighbors to tell them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep!’
Neighbors are invited into a shepherd’s recovery joy. Their nearness becomes a setting for shared rejoicing rather than a market of calculated return.
And when she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors to say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.’
The woman gathers neighbors to celebrate the recovery of what was lost. The repeated social scene helps Jesus make communal joy part of the parable’s response to restoration.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. a neighbour (as adjoining one's ground); by implication, a friend
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
4 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a neighbor
Read versea neighbor
Read versea neighbor
Read versea neighbor
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 3 case and number patterns. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
γείτων is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G1069 is a small word with a grounded social setting. John’s neighbors know the man as the beggar who used to sit nearby, so their question becomes part of the public recognition that something has changed. They do not automatically understand everything about Jesus, but they cannot honestly ignore the man’s new condition. Luke then places rich neighbors inside a warning about hospitality governed by repayment.
Jesus is not teaching that nearby people are unworthy of invitation; He is exposing the desire to make a banquet return the favor. In the next chapter, neighbors are summoned into the joy of a lost sheep and a lost coin being found. There, proximity becomes a channel for celebration rather than a ledger of exchange. These four uses give the church a modest but useful teaching path.
Neighbors are real people who see, are addressed, and can be welcomed into joy. They are not merely a demographic audience, and they are not a guaranteed source of approval. The word itself does not tell us how every neighbor should be treated in every circumstance. Jesus’ surrounding teaching supplies the ethical weight. Teachers can therefore move from social observation to public witness, from hospitality to generosity, and from recovery to shared joy without forcing the noun to carry a complete doctrine of mission.
G1069 invites disciples to notice who is near and to ask whether their presence is being used for control, ignored as irrelevant, or welcomed into truthful joy.
John.9.8
G1069 is a masculine noun used in plural forms in all four direct witnesses. Its lexical force identifies nearby neighbors, while the surrounding verbs and invitations determine whether the scene emphasizes recognition, repayment, or shared rejoicing.
The New Testament’s nearby-neighbor scenes stand within the Old Testament’s wider concern for neighbor-love, truthful community, hospitality, and justice. Jesus brings those concerns into ordinary meals, public healing, and rejoicing over restoration without reducing neighbor language to social approval.