Greek · Strong's G2807
κλείς
kleís (klice)
noun, feminine
A key—literal or figurative—symbolizing authority to open and shut, grant or withhold access.
Kleis is the ordinary Greek word for a key. In the New Testament it is always charged with authority. To hold the key is to decide who enters and who is shut out.
Jesus accuses the lawyers of taking away "the key of knowledge" by their teaching: they neither entered themselves nor allowed those who were entering to go in (Luke 11:52). To Peter, after his confession at Caesarea Philippi, He says, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matthew 16:19). The image draws on Isaiah 22:22, where the steward Eliakim is given "the key of the house of David"—delegated authority under the king. The keys are not Peter's possession to dispense as he wills; they are Christ's authority entrusted to His apostles to open the kingdom by proclaiming the gospel (an authority Peter exercises in Acts 2 and Acts 10).
Revelation makes the final point explicit: the risen Christ holds "the keys of death and of Hades" (Revelation 1:18), He has "the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth" (Revelation 3:7, again echoing Isaiah 22), and even the key to the abyss is His to give (Revelation 9:1; 20:1). All authority to open and to close, in heaven, on earth, and in the realm of the dead, belongs to Him.
Common English renderings
- key
- keys
Key verses
"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
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"Woe unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered."
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"and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades."
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"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and that shutteth and none openeth:"
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"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen unto the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss."
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"And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand."
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