To worship
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προσκυνέω is the primary NT word for the act of worship — specifically the bodily, directed posture of reverence before someone of supreme authority. The word comes from the combination of pros (toward) and kyneo (to kiss), suggesting the action of coming toward and kissing — as a subject would bow and kiss the hand or feet of a king.
Reader summary
Full entry for προσκυνέω (G4352) · Open the biblical lexicon
προσκυνέω is the primary NT word for the act of worship — specifically the bodily, directed posture of reverence before someone of supreme authority. The word comes from the combination of pros (toward) and kyneo (to kiss), suggesting the action of coming toward and kissing — as a subject would bow and kiss the hand or feet of a king.
The BSB source-word alignment has 60 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include Worship (15), worshiped (11), to worship (7), [and] worship (3), [and] knelt before (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 2:2. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (24), Matthew (13), John (11), Acts (4).
This entry includes 3 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
προσκυνέω is the primary NT word for the act of worship — specifically the bodily, directed posture of reverence before someone of supreme authority. The word comes from the combination of pros (toward) and kyneo (to kiss), suggesting the action of coming toward and kissing — as a subject would bow and kiss the hand or feet of a king. The LXX uses it to translate the Hebrew shachah (to bow down), which is the posture of prostration before God or a superior. Worship in this word is not first an emotional state or a musical experience; it is a directional act of submission and honor.
John 4:20-24 contains the most developed NT teaching on proskyneo. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that 'the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.' Three things are immediately clear. First, worship is what the Father actively seeks — not primarily worship's forms or locations, but worshipers. Second, true worship has a character: it is in spirit (pneuma — not mere outward form but the deepest interior reality of the person) and in truth (aletheia — corresponding to God's nature, not to human invention). Third, the location question the Samaritan raises (Jerusalem or Gerizim?) is made obsolete by the arrival of Jesus. Neither mountain defines true worship; Christ does.
Revelation's throne-room scenes (chapters 4-5, 7, 19) are the most concentrated use of proskyneo in the NT. The twenty-four elders fall and worship repeatedly; the living creatures cry 'Holy, holy, holy.' The repeated action of prostration before the throne is what worship looks like when the true greatness of God is seen without obstruction. What the heavenly scenes reveal is the proper proportion: the one on the throne is so overwhelmingly great that the only adequate response of those who see Him is to fall. Earthly worship is an anticipation of, and participation in, this unceasing reality.
For the preacher, προσκυνέω raises the question of direction. Worship is not a mood or a genre of music; it is a directed act — toward God, not toward the experience of worship itself. The moment worship becomes primarily about the worshiper's feelings, it has turned inward and ceased to be proskyneo.
προσκυνέω appears in the local Greek index about 60 times in the NT: in the Gospels for reverence directed at Jesus (often as a response to a miracle or His resurrection appearance), in John 4 for the defining teaching on true worship, and in Revelation where it is notably concentrated in the throne-room and prophetic visions. The word also appears in the temptation narrative, where the devil demands proskyneo — revealing that the question of who deserves worship is itself a spiritual battleground.
God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
The defining theological statement on the nature of true worship. Spirit and truth are not two separate requirements but two aspects of a single reality: worship that corresponds to what God actually is (spirit, not material or geographically fixed) and to what is genuinely true (the reality of who God is and who we are before Him). This verse does not mean worship should be minimally structured — it means worship must reach the actual God, not a projection, and must arise from the actual interior of the worshiper, not merely outward form.
The twenty-four elders fall down before the One seated on the throne, and they worship Him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
The archetypal worship scene: prostration, casting of crowns, verbal ascription of glory. The casting of crowns is a sign of total submission — whatever honor the elders have received, they return it to the one who gave it and who alone deserves it. This is the pattern of heavenly worship that all earthly worship anticipates: those who have received anything lay it before the one from whom it came. Worship is the posture of a creature who has correctly identified who holds all things.
So I fell at his feet to worship him. But he told me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who rely on the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
The refusal of proskyneo by a created being: the angel refuses John's worship and redirects it to God alone. This is the guardrail of the NT's worship theology: proskyneo belongs to God alone, and any created being — even an angel — who accepts what belongs to God has stepped into idolatry. The redirecting angel makes explicit what is always implicit: worship has a proper object and an improper one, and confusing them is the essence of idolatry.
“Away from Me, Satan!” Jesus told him. “For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’”
The temptation to misplace proskyneo: Satan offers the kingdoms of the world in exchange for a bow. Jesus refuses with Deuteronomy 6:13 — worship belongs to God alone and to no one else. The temptation is not merely personal; it reveals the enemy's strategy: get the worshipful posture misdirected, and everything else follows. Jesus' refusal establishes that the Lordship of God over worship is not negotiable regardless of the offer on the table.
“Lord, I believe,” he said. And he worshiped Jesus.
The man born blind, after his encounter with Jesus and his interrogation by the Pharisees, is found by Jesus and given the full revelation: 'You have both seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.' The response is immediate proskyneo — he worships Jesus. This is the pattern John has built across the Gospel: the revelation of who Jesus is calls for worship as the only adequate response. Proskyneo directed at Jesus is affirmed, not corrected, throughout John's Gospel.
That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
The eschatological proskyneo: every knee, every dimension of creation, bowing to the name above every name. This is the final destination of all worship — universal acknowledgment of Christ's authority. The present act of worship by the church is not separate from this future reality; it is its anticipation. The congregation that gathers to worship is not doing something separate from the heavenly scene; it is participating in the same reality that Revelation 4-5 depicts.
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.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Physical prostration expressing reverence or submission to God, Christ, or human superiors.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 60 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I worship
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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.
How this verb appears across 60 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 5 selected witnesses from 60 lexical occurrence verses.
προσκυνέω is built from these roots:
Demonstrates that Jesus receives royal homage. Hebrews 1:5-14
Confirms Christ’s divine worthiness. Luke 24:50–53
Shows angels rendering worship to the Son, affirming His divine status. Matthew 2:1–12
προσκυνέω is the word that makes clear worship is not a style or a feeling — it is a direction. The question proskyneo always asks is: toward whom? The temptation narrative (Matt 4:10) reveals that the enemy's deepest strategy is misdirecting the worshipful posture — not eliminating it, but redirecting it toward something other than God. And the Revelation scenes show what worship looks like when it reaches its proper object: prostration, crown-casting, unceasing verbal ascription of worth.
The church's gathered worship is the place where the direction is re-established. People come in having spent a week organizing their lives around other centers of value, and the gathered community together re-orients toward the one who is actually worthy. The preacher's task in the context of worship is not to produce an emotional experience but to reveal the one toward whom the posture of proskyneo properly belongs, so that the congregation's worship is genuinely directed, not merely felt.
Jhn.4.24
προσκυνέω is formed from pros (toward, in the direction of) and kyneo (to kiss). The image is of someone coming toward a superior and kissing — the gesture of a subject before a king, of a worshiper before a god. In the ancient world this could be a literal prostration with forehead to the ground. The LXX uses it to translate shachah (H7812) hundreds of times in the OT — the same gesture applied to God, to kings, and to angelic beings.
In the NT, proskyneo is used both for reverence toward Jesus during His earthly ministry (often by those He has healed) and for eschatological worship in Revelation. The repeated use in Revelation — 24 occurrences — is the highest concentration in the NT and reflects the central role of worship in John's vision of what heaven is: a place of unceasing, properly-directed, total-person reverence before the living God.
The OT background of proskyneo runs through the shachah texts — prostration before God at Sinai (Exodus 34:8), the posture of the Psalms' worshipers (Ps 22:27; 86:9; 95:6), and the prophetic vision of all nations coming to bow before YHWH (Isa 66:23; Zech 14:16). The Psalter establishes that proskyneo is the appropriate response to the revelation of God's greatness and goodness — to see who God is is to fall before Him.
Psalm 95 — 'come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker' — is the congregational invitation to the posture that proskyneo names. The NT's development adds the Christological center: the proskyneo that belongs to God is now offered to the risen Jesus (Matt 28:9, 17; Jhn 9:38; 20:28) without correction, because to worship the Son is to worship the Father who sent Him (Jhn 5:23).
Revelation's throne scenes show YHWH and the Lamb receiving the same proskyneo (Rev 5:13-14), completing the OT trajectory in the clearest Christological terms.
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