A camel appears in these Gospel passages as an animal, a source of clothing material, and the large creature in Jesus' striking comparisons. John the Baptist wears a garment of camel's hair in the wilderness setting of his call to repentance.
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Full entry for κάμηλος (G2574) · Open the biblical lexicon
A camel appears in these Gospel passages as an animal, a source of clothing material, and the large creature in Jesus' striking comparisons. John the Baptist wears a garment of camel's hair in the wilderness setting of his call to repentance.
The BSB source-word alignment has 6 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include a camel (3), camel’s (2), [for] a camel (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 3:4. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (3), Mark (2), Luke (1).
A camel appears in these Gospel passages as an animal, a source of clothing material, and the large creature in Jesus' striking comparisons. John the Baptist wears a garment of camel's hair in the wilderness setting of his call to repentance. Jesus places a camel beside the eye of a needle when speaking about a rich person's entrance into God's kingdom. The disciples' astonished question about salvation receives an answer about human impossibility and God's possibility.
In another rebuke, Jesus contrasts straining out a gnat with swallowing a camel while exposing neglect of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. The word has no separate doctrine of wealth or religious hypocrisy built into it. The animal's contribution to each picture becomes clear through the speaker's argument and the surrounding response.
John's clothing and Jesus' needle and gnat comparisons give the camel three distinct Gospel functions. The kingdom and hypocrisy claims belong to the surrounding teaching rather than to an independent symbolic definition of the animal.
John wore a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
Camel's hair describes John's garment amid the account of wilderness proclamation and repentance; the material detail does not prescribe one wardrobe for Christian ministers.
Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Jesus' camel-and-needle comparison follows the wealthy man's sorrowful departure and leads to the disciples' salvation question, answered by God's possibility rather than a technique for making human effort sufficient.
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
The gnat-and-camel contrast exposes distorted priorities after Jesus names neglected justice, mercy, and faithfulness; He also says the other duties should not have been neglected.
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. Large animal used in desert regions; symbolizes wealth and represents extreme impossibility in proverbial sayings.
Large animal used in desert regions; symbolizes wealth and represents extreme impossibility in proverbial sayings.
camel: Mat.3:4, Mrk.1:6; in proverbs, Mat.19:24 23:24, Mrk.10:25, Luk.18:25 (on the seel. κάμιλος, see WH, Notes, 151). κάμιλος, see: κάμηλος, and cf. Thayer; LS, s.v
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
6 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a camel
Read versea camel
Read versea camel
Read versea camel
Read versea camel
Read versea camel
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 2 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.
Hebrew roots and equivalents that share conceptual or etymological ground with this Greek word.
The camel makes Jesus' comparisons difficult to domesticate. After the wealthy man's departure, the image draws an astonished question from the disciples: who can be saved? Jesus does not answer with a narrower route through which disciplined people can squeeze themselves. His answer places human impossibility beside God's possibility. In Matthew 23, the same conspicuous animal makes another imbalance absurd: people attend minutely to a gnat while swallowing something vastly larger.
The preceding verse names the neglected matters and preserves the lesser responsibilities as well. Reading both sayings carefully guards against self-reliant salvation and selective obedience. Neither passage permits contempt for every wealthy person or for Jewish neighbors. The comparisons confront particular confidence and conduct through Jesus' own stated argument.
Matt.19.24
The governed Greek comparator identifies the camel, while the BSB wording makes its role clear through hair, needle, or gnat. The selected translation and local word-table identity do not require reconstructing a different textual reading or a named gate.
The justice named in Matthew 23 can be compared with the explicit concern for justice in Micah 6:8. That thematic connection comes from the passages' stated priorities; the camel does not become an Old Testament type or an independent lexical proof of the whole comparison.