Prison/watch: prison
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Phylake is a Greek noun for a watch, guard post, prison, or place of custody. Its senses are historically related: a watch guards through a portion of the night, guards keep custody, and a prison is a guarded place.
Reader summary
Full entry for φυλακή (G5438) · Open the biblical lexicon
Phylake is a Greek noun for a watch, guard post, prison, or place of custody. Its senses are historically related: a watch guards through a portion of the night, guards keep custody, and a prison is a guarded place.
The BSB source-word alignment has 47 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include prison (27), jail (3), watch (3), - (2), . . . (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 5:25. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (16), Matthew (10), Luke (8), Revelation (5).
Phylake is a Greek noun for a watch, guard post, prison, or place of custody. Its senses are historically related: a watch guards through a portion of the night, guards keep custody, and a prison is a guarded place. New Testament context determines whether the word marks time, personnel, confinement, or the place itself. Shepherds keep watch when angels announce Jesus’ birth.
Jesus refers to later watches of the night to teach alert service. John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Silas, and persecuted believers experience imprisonment under different authorities and circumstances. Prison can be just or unjust, and release can come through ordinary judgment, providential events, or not at all. The noun does not make every restriction persecution, promise miraculous escape, or sanctify abusive custody.
It helps teachers trace vigilance, confinement, suffering, prayer, witness, and endurance while keeping each narrative’s cause and outcome in view.
Phylake links the ideas of guarding, a period of watch, and a guarded place such as a prison. Immediate context distinguishes the senses. Night-watch passages call for alertness; prison passages may expose injustice, record persecution, or locate gospel witness. The word itself does not determine whether custody is lawful or guarantee release.
And there were shepherds residing in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks by night.
Here phylake names the shepherds’ night watch. Their ordinary vigilance becomes the setting for the angelic announcement of the Savior’s birth.
Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, those servants will be blessed.
The night watches structure Jesus’ image of servants awaiting their master. The emphasis is persevering readiness, not date calculation.
Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,
John’s imprisonment follows his truthful rebuke of Herod. The narrative exposes costly prophetic faithfulness under corrupt power.
So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was fervently praying to God for him.
Peter’s custody is set beside the church’s earnest prayer. His deliverance displays God’s power but does not create a promise that every prisoner will be released.
And after striking them with many blows, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to guard them securely.
Paul and Silas suffer public beating and imprisonment without due process. Their later worship and witness do not make the abuse good.
Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, and you will suffer tribulation for ten days. Be faithful even unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
Jesus prepares Smyrna for bounded yet severe persecution. His promise centers on faithfulness and the crown of life, not guaranteed avoidance of prison or death.
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. Prison, sentries, or a night watch—context determines which meaning, not the word itself
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 47 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
Read versea watching, guard, prison, imprisonment
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 6 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 1 selected witness from 47 lexical occurrence verses.
φυλακή 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.
Phylake brings vigilance and confinement into one lexical field without making them the same experience. Shepherds keep an ordinary night watch when heaven announces Christ. Jesus uses later watches to picture servants whose readiness endures when the master’s arrival seems delayed. Prison narratives then test faithfulness under custody. John suffers because he tells a ruler the truth.
Peter is guarded while the church prays and God delivers him. Paul and Silas are beaten and imprisoned unjustly, yet their worship and gospel witness reach the jailer. Revelation refuses a simplistic escape promise: believers in Smyrna may enter prison and face death, but the risen Christ promises the crown of life. These passages neither romanticize abuse nor make suffering spiritually necessary.
They show that no guard post or prison lies outside Christ’s authority. The church may pray for release, pursue justice, care for prisoners, and prepare for endurance while refusing to call evil good or to measure God’s faithfulness only by immediate freedom.
Rev.2.10
Phylake belongs to the guard word-group. It can denote the act or period of watching, a body or station of guards, custody, or the guarded place called prison. English versions select watch, guard, jail, or prison according to context. The lexical relationship does not erase the different referents.
Old Testament watchmen guard cities and wait for morning, while faithful servants such as Joseph and Jeremiah experience unjust custody. Prophetic promises use prison release as an image of God’s saving work. In the New Testament, watch-language supports readiness and prison narratives display both costly witness and providential care. Jesus identifies with prisoners and promises final life to believers who remain faithful under persecution.