Synagogue
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συναγωγή (synagōgē) commonly names a synagogue, the Jewish assembly and the place associated with communal worship, Scripture reading, teaching, discipline, and public life. The New Testament presents synagogues as real Jewish settings in which Jesus teaches the kingdom, reads Isaiah, heals, confronts hypocrisy, and warns disciples about opposition.
Reader summary
Full entry for συναγωγή (G4864) · Open the biblical lexicon
συναγωγή (synagōgē) commonly names a synagogue, the Jewish assembly and the place associated with communal worship, Scripture reading, teaching, discipline, and public life. The New Testament presents synagogues as real Jewish settings in which Jesus teaches the kingdom, reads Isaiah, heals, confronts hypocrisy, and warns disciples about opposition.
The BSB source-word alignment has 56 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include synagogue (27), synagogues (22), [the] synagogue (2), [the] synagogues (2), a synagogue (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 4:23. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (19), Luke (15), Matthew (9), Mark (8).
συναγωγή (synagōgē) commonly names a synagogue, the Jewish assembly and the place associated with communal worship, Scripture reading, teaching, discipline, and public life. The New Testament presents synagogues as real Jewish settings in which Jesus teaches the kingdom, reads Isaiah, heals, confronts hypocrisy, and warns disciples about opposition. Acts then shows Paul entering synagogues to reason from Scripture with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles.
James can use the same noun for a meeting where the church’s treatment of rich and poor exposes whether faith in the Lord Jesus is joined to partiality. The word must therefore retain its Jewish historical setting and its range. It is neither a simple synonym for the church nor a negative label for unbelief. Synagogue scenes can contain faithful hearing, Gospel proclamation, hardened resistance, social honor seeking, discipline, and searching inquiry.
Responsible teaching asks what kind of assembly or place the passage depicts, who is speaking, and how the hearers respond to God’s word.
συναγωγή names a synagogue or assembly and ordinarily locates the reader within Jewish communal life. The selected passages move from Jesus’ teaching and customary Scripture reading to apostolic reasoning and James’s warning against partiality in a gathered meeting.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
Matthew places Jesus’ kingdom proclamation and healing ministry within Galilee’s synagogues. The setting shows continuity with Jewish public life while the content and authority of Jesus’ ministry move the narrative forward.
Then Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. As was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath. And when He stood up to read,
Jesus participates in the synagogue’s Sabbath reading as a customary practice. Luke uses the familiar setting to introduce Jesus’ reading of Isaiah and His declaration that the Scripture is fulfilled in the hearers’ presence.
And from Perga, they traveled inland to Pisidian Antioch, where they entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down.
Paul and Barnabas begin in the synagogue, where the invitation to speak creates an opening for a Scripture-shaped proclamation of Israel’s story and its fulfillment in Jesus.
Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks alike.
In Corinth the synagogue is a recurring setting for reasoned persuasion. The setting does not guarantee reception or become the church; it is a public mission field where the claims of Christ are contested.
Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in.
James uses the noun for the readers’ meeting while exposing status-based favoritism. This less common use confirms an assembly sense but should not erase the word’s dominant Jewish institutional setting elsewhere.
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. Assembly of Jews gathered for worship; also the building itself where this religious community met.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 57 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
an assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
Read versean assembly, congregation, synagogue
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 7 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.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 56 lexical occurrence verses.
συναγωγή 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.
The synagogue is not background furniture in the Gospel and Acts narratives. It is a lived Jewish institution where Scripture is heard, communal identity is practiced, and claims about God’s fulfillment are publicly tested. Jesus enters as was His custom, reads Isaiah, and announces fulfillment in Himself. Paul and Barnabas likewise enter a synagogue and recount Israel’s story as the setting for proclaiming the promised Savior.
Yet shared space and shared texts do not guarantee shared response. Some hear, some inquire, and some oppose. James sharpens the pastoral test from another direction: an assembly that seats people according to wealth contradicts faith in the Lord of glory. Teachers should therefore resist two errors at once. They must not portray the synagogue as a merely negative foil, and they must not flatten synagogue and church into identical institutions.
The selected passages instead invite readers to honor the Jewish setting, trace Gospel proclamation from Israel’s Scriptures, and evaluate every gathered community by its response to God’s word and its treatment of people.
Luke.4.16
The noun is related to the verb συνάγω, but its New Testament meaning is governed by usage rather than by adding the meanings of its parts. It commonly denotes a Jewish synagogue as an assembly, institution, or place; James 2:2 preserves a broader meeting sense. The passage must decide whether location, gathered people, communal practice, or institutional action is foregrounded.
Synagogue life developed within Israel’s long practice of gathering to hear and obey God’s word, especially as Jewish communities lived beyond Jerusalem. The New Testament scenes remain tethered to Israel’s Scriptures and Sabbath life, while the temple retains a distinct covenantal and cultic role. Teachers should describe that relationship carefully rather than claiming a single verse supplies a complete institutional history.