To destroy/lodge
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G2647 describes loosening something down, which can mean dismantling a structure, overthrowing or nullifying a work or claim, and in a distinct travel sense stopping to lodge as a guest. The verb refers to demolished buildings, accusations about the temple, plans that fail, law wrongly imagined as abolished, Gods work harmed over food, an earthly body dismantled, or a traveler receiving lodging, so destruction and.
Reader summary
Full entry for καταλύω (G2647) · Open the biblical lexicon
G2647 describes loosening something down, which can mean dismantling a structure, overthrowing or nullifying a work or claim, and in a distinct travel sense stopping to lodge as a guest. The verb refers to demolished buildings, accusations about the temple, plans that fail, law wrongly imagined as abolished, Gods work harmed over food, an earthly body.
The BSB source-word alignment has 17 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include will be thrown down (3), will destroy (2), are going to destroy (1), destroy (1), for lodging (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:17. Its strongest book concentrations include Matthew (5), Acts (3), Luke (3), Mark (3).
G2647 describes loosening something down, which can mean dismantling a structure, overthrowing or nullifying a work or claim, and in a distinct travel sense stopping to lodge as a guest. The verb refers to demolished buildings, accusations about the temple, plans that fail, law wrongly imagined as abolished, Gods work harmed over food, an earthly body dismantled, or a traveler receiving lodging, so destruction and hospitality must remain distinct senses.
In Matt. 5. 17, jesus tells His disciples not to think that He came to abolish the Law or Prophets, but to fulfill them. In Rom. 14. 20, paul warns the Roman believers not to destroy Gods work for the sake of food while discussing conscience and mutual welcome. G2647 opens teaching on what may be torn down, what must not be nullified, and how Jesus fulfills rather than abolishes Scripture while receiving hospitality from people others despise.
It corrects anti-Jewish readings that portray Jesus as discarding the Law and Prophets, and it confronts communities that destroy Gods work in people for the sake of food, status, or disputed practices. G2647 carries two distinct contextual paths: Jesus denies that He came to abolish the Law or Prophets, Paul warns believers not to destroy Gods work for the sake of food, and Luke uses the verb when Jesus lodges with Zacchaeus.
Dismantling can describe buildings or overturned purposes, while lodging describes a travelers temporary stay. The shared verb does not make hospitality destructive or turn fulfillment into cancellation. For G2647, responsible teaching keeps lexical meaning, passage context, canonical synthesis, and present application distinguishable. G2647 does not teach that Jesus rejected Israels Scriptures, let Christians weaponize food rules against conscience, imply that every institution deserves preservation, or make hospitality an endorsement of exploitation and unrepented harm.
G2647 appears across passages that develop Jesus and the Law, temple testimony, human plans, Gods enduring work, conscience, neighbor love, mortality, resurrection hope, hospitality, and repentance. For G2647, the immediate setting decides which part of the range is active, so the witnesses must remain distinct rather than being merged into one formula.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
Jesus tells His disciples not to think that He came to abolish the Law or Prophets, but to fulfill them.
Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to let his eating be a stumbling block.
Paul warns the Roman believers not to destroy Gods work for the sake of food while discussing conscience and mutual welcome.
And all who saw this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man!”
The crowd grumbles that Jesus has gone to lodge with Zacchaeus, whom they identify as a sinful man.
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. Destroy/overthrow physically or figuratively; also means lodge by unharnessing—two opposite semantic poles.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 17 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
Read verseI break up, overthrow, unharness, find a lodging
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 mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
How this verb appears across 17 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 3 selected witnesses from 17 lexical occurrence verses.
καταλύω is built from these roots:
Indicates complete dismantling.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
G2647 carries two distinct contextual paths: Jesus denies that He came to abolish the Law or Prophets, Paul warns believers not to destroy Gods work for the sake of food, and Luke uses the verb when Jesus lodges with Zacchaeus. Dismantling can describe buildings or overturned purposes, while lodging describes a travelers temporary stay. The shared verb does not make hospitality destructive or turn fulfillment into cancellation.
G2647 describes loosening something down, which can mean dismantling a structure, overthrowing or nullifying a work or claim, and in a distinct travel sense stopping to lodge as a guest. The selected witnesses keep the teaching concrete: Matt. 5. 17 shows that jesus tells His disciples not to think that He came to abolish the Law or Prophets, but to fulfill them, while Rom.
14. 20 Shows that paul warns the Roman believers not to destroy Gods work for the sake of food while discussing conscience and mutual welcome. Luke. 19. 7 adds that the crowd grumbles that Jesus has gone to lodge with Zacchaeus, whom they identify as a sinful man. G2647 opens teaching on what may be torn down, what must not be nullified, and how Jesus fulfills rather than abolishes Scripture while receiving hospitality from people others despise.
It corrects anti-Jewish readings that portray Jesus as discarding the Law and Prophets, and it confronts communities that destroy Gods work in people for the sake of food, status, or disputed practices. A church teaching G2647 faithfully will name both the promise and the boundary carried by these contexts, attend to vulnerable hearers, and refuse to make the lexical item prove more than its passages support.
G2647 does not teach that Jesus rejected Israels Scriptures, let Christians weaponize food rules against conscience, imply that every institution deserves preservation, or make hospitality an endorsement of exploitation and unrepented harm.
Matt.5.17
G2647 is a Greek compound verb built from down and loosen; it can mean dismantle, destroy, overthrow, nullify, or, in an established intransitive travel usage, stop and lodge, with syntax and context distinguishing the senses.
False witnesses attach temple-destruction language to Jesus, yet His death and resurrection reveal the authority of the true temple. Apostolic teaching receives Israels Scriptures through fulfillment in Christ and calls Jews and Gentiles to protect Gods work in one another through peace, conscience, and welcome.