A wall (as formative of a house)
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G5038 is a Greek noun for a wall, especially the substantial wall surrounding a city. Acts 9:25 and Second Corinthians 11:33 recall Paul being lowered through a window in the wall to escape a deadly plot, so a defensive structure becomes the route through which others help him reach safety.
Reader summary
Full entry for τεῖχος (G5038) · Open the biblical lexicon
G5038 is a Greek noun for a wall, especially the substantial wall surrounding a city. Acts 9:25 and Second Corinthians 11:33 recall Paul being lowered through a window in the wall to escape a deadly plot, so a defensive structure becomes the route through which others help him reach safety.
The BSB source-word alignment has 9 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include wall (5), walls (3), wall [to be] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Acts 9:25. Its strongest book concentrations include Revelation (6), 2 Corinthians (1), Acts (1), Hebrews (1).
G5038 is a Greek noun for a wall, especially the substantial wall surrounding a city. Acts 9:25 and Second Corinthians 11:33 recall Paul being lowered through a window in the wall to escape a deadly plot, so a defensive structure becomes the route through which others help him reach safety. Hebrews 11:30 names the fall of Jericho's walls after Israel's seven-day march as an act received by faith.
Revelation 21 repeatedly describes the New Jerusalem's great wall, gates, foundations, measurements, and precious materials as part of an apocalyptic picture of secure, ordered, radiant communion with God. G5038 opens protection, boundaries, escape routes, fallen defenses, and promised security. It corrects both the assumption that faithful courage never retreats through a window and the attempt to turn apocalyptic measurements into speculative construction plans, exclusionary politics, or a mandate for every community to become inaccessible.
G5038 denotes a built wall, most often a city wall. Narrative uses show escape through or collapse of a wall, while Revelation's vision gives the holy city's wall symbolic architectural detail. Material and visionary genres require different kinds of reading.
One night, however, his disciples took him and lowered him in a basket through a window in the wall.
Disciples lower Saul through an opening in the city wall at night so that he can escape a plot against his life.
By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched around them for seven days.
Hebrews remembers Jericho's walls falling after the people encircled them for seven days by faith.
The city had a great and high wall with twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve angels at the gates.
John sees the holy city with a great high wall, named gates, and angels as part of the final vision of God's dwelling.
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. a wall (as formative of a house)
a wall, esp. that about a town: Act.9:25, 2Co.11:33, Heb.11:30, Rev.21:12-19
Textus Receptus witness, full corpusGreek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
9 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
a wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
Read versea wall
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 4 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.
τεῖχος 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.
G5038 shows that boundaries are morally evaluated by their purpose and use. A city wall ordinarily promises defense, yet the same structure can trap a threatened person inside. Saul's disciples find an opening and lower him in a basket, treating retreat as faithful protection rather than cowardice. The episode also honors communal help: the endangered person does not engineer escape alone.
Jericho's wall represents an obstacle that falls in Israel's entry story, while Revelation's wall belongs to a city whose gates bear covenant names and whose radiance comes from God's presence. The vision combines security, identity, beauty, measurement, and open access through gates without making human fortification the source of salvation. Churches and families need boundaries, secure spaces, and clear access practices, especially for vulnerable people.
They also need emergency exits, appeal paths, and outside accountability so that protection does not become confinement. A wall that only protects leaders from scrutiny is not serving the same good. Biblical wall language invites wise construction and humble testing, while final safety rests in God's renewed dwelling rather than in architecture, secrecy, or control.
Acts.9.25
G5038 is a neuter noun for a substantial wall, particularly around a city. The accompanying verbs distinguish falling, escaping through, measuring, constructing, or adorning, while Revelation's repeated use belongs to a symbolic city vision.
Old Testament city walls signify protection, siege, breached security, restored communal life, and prophetic hope. Revelation gathers that background into the New Jerusalem, while Paul's escape demonstrates that present walls remain ambiguous and provisional.