To recline
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Anapipto means to recline, sit down, or lean back, especially in meal settings. The word can describe crowds sitting before Jesus feeds them, guests taking a place at a banquet, Jesus reclining with His apostles, Jesus returning to the table after washing His disciples feet, and the beloved disciple leaning back to ask who would betray Him.
Reader summary
Full entry for ἀναπίπτω (G377) · Open the biblical lexicon
Anapipto means to recline, sit down, or lean back, especially in meal settings. The word can describe crowds sitting before Jesus feeds them, guests taking a place at a banquet, Jesus reclining with His apostles, Jesus returning to the table after washing His disciples feet, and the beloved disciple leaning back to ask who would betray Him.
The BSB source-word alignment has 12 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include to sit down (2), [and] reclined at the table (1), [and] sit (1), [and] sit down to eat (1), [Jesus] reclined at the table (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 15:35. Its strongest book concentrations include John (5), Luke (4), Mark (2), Matthew (1).
Anapipto means to recline, sit down, or lean back, especially in meal settings. The word can describe crowds sitting before Jesus feeds them, guests taking a place at a banquet, Jesus reclining with His apostles, Jesus returning to the table after washing His disciples feet, and the beloved disciple leaning back to ask who would betray Him. It is an embodied word, but its importance comes from the scene.
In the feeding narratives, sitting down orders the crowd for Jesus provision. In Luke 14, taking the lower place teaches humility. In John 13, reclining after foot washing sets Jesus teaching in the shadow of servant love and betrayal. Anapipto therefore helps readers notice how posture, place, and nearness serve the passage argument.
Anapipto moves across sitting crowds, banquet placement, supper posture, foot-washing instruction, and leaning near Jesus. It is not a secret symbol. It is concrete posture that helps a scene show provision, humility, communion, service, or disclosure.
And He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Jesus instructs the crowd to sit down before feeding them. The posture prepares the scene for ordered provision.
So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.
The crowd sits in groups before the feeding. The detail highlights order, dependence, and Jesus provision.
But when you are invited, go and sit in the last place, so that your host will come and tell you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in front of everyone at the table with you.
Jesus teaches guests to take the lower place. Sitting becomes a lesson in humility before honor.
When the hour had come, Jesus reclined at the table with His apostles.
Jesus reclines with His apostles when the hour has come. The supper setting stands near His suffering and covenant words.
When Jesus had washed their feet and put on His outer garments, He reclined with them again and asked, “Do you know what I have done for you?
After washing their feet, Jesus reclines again and interprets His action. The posture frames servant love and instruction.
Leaning back against Jesus, he asked, “Lord, who is it?”
The beloved disciple leans back against Jesus to ask about betrayal. Nearness becomes a place of disclosure.
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. to recline
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
11 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
Read verseI lie down, recline, fall back upon
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 12 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)
ἀναπίπτω is built from these roots:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Anapipto reminds teachers that embodied details matter, but they must be governed by context. Sitting on the ground before a miraculous feeding is different from choosing the lowest place at a banquet, and both are different from Jesus reclining with His apostles at the hour of His suffering. John 13 is especially important: Jesus reclines again after washing feet, so the table scene does not weaken His servant posture but interprets it.
Leaning back near Jesus then becomes the setting for a question about betrayal. The word therefore helps readers see that posture can organize a scene, but the passage tells us whether that posture displays dependence, humility, service, communion, or disclosure.
John.13.12
Anapipto may be rendered sit down, recline, or lean back. The verb describes bodily posture or movement into meal position, while the surrounding narrative supplies the theological meaning.
Scripture often uses posture and place to make visible dependence, humility, readiness, and honor. The New Testament table and feeding scenes focus those embodied details around Jesus provision, servant love, and coming suffering.