What does the Greek word metanoia (repentance) mean in the Bible?

Key facts

• Metanoia (μετάνοια) is the noun and metanoeō (μετανοέω) the verb. The standard lexicons give "change of mind", "repentance" and "turning about" as their core senses. [BDAG, s.v. μετάνοια, μετανοέω; Thayer, s.v. μετάνοια]
• The word is formed from meta (μετά, here signalling change) and the root of nous (νοῦς, "mind") and noeō (νοέω, "to perceive, think"). [Thayer, s.v. μετανοέω; Strong's G3341, G3340]
• Jesus' first recorded proclamation in Mark joins repenting and believing: metanoeite kai pisteuete. [Mark 1:15, NA28]
• In 2 Corinthians 7:9–10, sorrow (lypē, λύπη) is said to lead to repentance (metanoia). Sorrow and repentance are distinct things. [2 Corinthians 7:9–10, NA28]
• When Judas regrets betraying Jesus, Matthew uses metamelomai (μεταμέλομαι), "to regret", not metanoeō. [Matthew 27:3, NA28; BDAG, s.v. μεταμέλομαι]
• Acts 3:19 pairs metanoeō with epistrephō (ἐπιστρέφω), "turn": "repent and turn". [Acts 3:19, NA28]
• The main Old Testament word for turning back to God is shuv (שׁוּב), "to turn, return". [BDB, s.v. שׁוּב]
• The Latin Vulgate renders metanoeite in Matthew 3:2 as paenitentiam agite, which the Douay–Rheims English translation renders "do penance". [Vulgate and Douay–Rheims, Matthew 3:2]
• In his Latin New Testament, Erasmus replaced paenitentiam agite with resipiscite, "come to your senses". [Erasmus, Novum Testamentum, 1519 edn, Matthew 3:2]
• English "repent" came through Old French repentir from Latin, from the verb paenitere, "to cause regret". [Oxford English Dictionary, "repent"]
• The Weight of God defines metanoia as "complete reorientation. The departure side of weight relocation. One motion with pistis." [The Weight of God, Key Terms]

Key terms

metanoia μετάνοια

change of mind, turning, reorientation; the noun translated "repentance"

metanoeō μετανοέω

to change one's mind, to repent; the verb in Mark 1:15

metamelomai μεταμέλομαι

to regret, to feel remorse; used of Judas in Matthew 27:3

epistrephō ἐπιστρέφω

to turn, to turn back; paired with metanoeō in Acts 3:19

shuv שׁוּב

to turn, to return; the main Old Testament word for turning back to God

paenitentia (Latin)

penitence, penance; the Vulgate's rendering of metanoia

Explanation

A change of mind, not a change of mood

Metanoia combines the idea of change with the vocabulary of the mind. Its literal sense is a change of mind or an after-thought, and in ordinary Greek it could describe changing one's opinion or plan. In the New Testament it takes on a fuller meaning: a reorientation of the whole person towards God. The lexicons treat the inner turning as the core of the word. Emotion may accompany it, but the word does not name an emotion.

Etymology is a guide, not a definition, and the meaning of metanoia is clearest from how the New Testament uses it.

Repentance and sorrow in the New Testament

Two passages show that the New Testament does not equate repentance with feeling sorry. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul writes about a letter that grieved its readers, and says: "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" (NIV). Sorrow is the cause; repentance is the result. They are not the same thing.

The second passage is Matthew 27:3. Judas, seeing that Jesus has been condemned, is filled with remorse and returns the silver. Matthew's verb is metamelomai, a word for regret. Judas regrets what he has done, but the text does not use the word for a change of mind and direction.

Turning, and turning towards

In the Old Testament the main word for repentance is shuv, "to turn" or "to return": Israel turning back to God. The New Testament keeps that picture. In Acts 3:19 Peter tells his hearers to repent (metanoeō) and turn (epistrephō).

Repentance in the New Testament is regularly paired with faith. Mark 1:15 summarises Jesus' first preaching as "Repent and believe the good news!" (NIV). Acts 20:21 summarises Paul's message as repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus, and Hebrews 6:1 lists repentance from dead works and faith towards God together among the foundations. The two words describe one movement from two sides: turning away from one thing and towards another (see What does it mean to believe in Jesus?).

How "repentance" came to mean penance

The Latin Vulgate translated the call to repent in Matthew 3:2 as paenitentiam agite. In medieval church usage paenitentia was also the name of the sacrament of penance, and the phrase came to be read as "do penance", the rendering of the Douay–Rheims English Bible. The English word "repent" itself comes, through Old French, from the Latin verb paenitere, "to cause regret".

Renaissance scholars noticed the gap. In his Latin New Testament, Erasmus replaced paenitentiam agite with resipiscite, "come to your senses". Luther's first thesis of 1517 turned on the same verse, insisting that when Jesus said "Repent" he meant the whole life of believers to be one of repentance, and his second thesis denied that the word meant the sacrament of penance. The Weight of God (Ch. 5) argues that despite this, "repentance" in popular use remained "permanently fused with ‘feeling sorry’". That is the book's assessment of popular usage; the Reformation-era debate shows the Latin rendering was already being contested.

Repentance as preparing ground

In Chapter 7 the book compares metanoia to breaking up hard soil before planting. It argues that compacted ground has to be opened before a seed can take root, and that metanoia is that step in a person's life: "Metanoia is not a feeling." It adds: "The old surface has to break before anything new can take root." The farming picture is the book's own image, not a lexical gloss, but it matches the lexical sense of a change that goes below the surface.

Common misunderstandings

• "Repentance means feeling sorry for sin." Correction: metanoia means a change of mind and direction. 2 Corinthians 7:10 presents sorrow as something that leads to repentance, not as repentance itself.
• "Regret and repentance are the same word in the Bible." Correction: Matthew 27:3 uses metamelomai, "to regret", for Judas. Metanoia is a different word.
• "Repentance means doing penance." Correction: "do penance" reflects the Latin paenitentiam agite and later church practice. The Greek describes a turning of the mind and life.
• "Repentance is something you do once before you can believe." Correction: the New Testament pairs repentance and faith as one turning (Mark 1:15; Acts 20:21). The book also treats it as ongoing, renewed whenever a person's reliance drifts back onto themselves.
• "Repentance is earning forgiveness." Correction: in the New Testament repentance is turning to God, not paying for wrongs. The book stresses that the foundation does not depend on the thoroughness of one's own effort.

What the book argues

The Weight of God: How to Believe (Matthew Wong, 2026) treats metanoia as inseparable from pistis, the New Testament word for faith (see What does pistis mean in the New Testament?). Its definition: metanoia is "the departure side of weight relocation" (Key Terms). In Chapter 12 the book describes repentance not as sorrow or guilt but as "a decision to stop treating yourself as the load-bearing structure of your life." Pistis is where the weight lands; metanoia is the weight lifting off. The book warns that the two belong together: "Metanoia without pistis is a person suspended in mid-air" (Ch. 10). It also treats repentance as repeated rather than one-off, since a person's reliance keeps drifting back onto themselves, and it points to Romans 8:1, "no condemnation", as the ground for returning. In Chapter 5 it argues that Latin paenitentia buried the original sense under guilt and penance. The lexical meaning of metanoia as a change of mind is standard. The weight picture and the one-motion framing are the book's own.

In the book: Chapter 5: The Drift; Chapter 7: Good Soil; Chapter 12: How to Believe.

Sources

1. Arndt, William F., F. Wilbur Gingrich, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edn (BDAG). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Entries for μετάνοια, μετανοέω, μεταμέλομαι.
2. Thayer, Joseph Henry. Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995 (reprint of 1886 edn). Entries for μετάνοια, μετανοέω.
3. Strong, James. Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1890. G3340, G3341.
4. Brown, Francis, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs. A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (BDB). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907. Entry for שׁוּב.
5. Erasmus, Desiderius. Novum Testamentum, 2nd edn. Basel: Froben, 1519. Matthew 3:2.
6. Luther, Martin. Ninety-Five Theses (Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences), 1517. Theses 1–2.
7. Oxford English Dictionary, "repent".
8. Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28th edn (NA28).
9. Latin Vulgate; Douay–Rheims Bible; Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Biblica, 2011.
10. Wong, Matthew. The Weight of God: How to Believe. Australia, 2026. ISBN 978-1-7646297-3-7. Chapters 5, 7, 10 and 12.