The righteous keep going down the King's list, and at each need they come up empty. They cannot recall ever welcoming Him as a stranger or clothing Him. Gill explains that they had never seen Christ a stranger and taken Him into their houses, "yet they had seen him hungry and thirsty, and as a stranger in his members," meaning in His people, and had done these kindnesses "for his sake." He also notes that Christ in His own person was never naked "until stripped of his raiment by the soldiers" (Matthew 27:28). The question presses the same humble wonder: when could this ever have been You?

The King's answer covers every question the righteous ask: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). The stranger they welcomed and the naked they clothed were His brethren, and so they had welcomed and clothed Him.

"Stranger" translates xenos, which Thayer defines as "a foreigner, stranger." "Took thee in" is synagagomen, literally "we gathered together." Thayer explains that in this passage it means "to lead with oneself namely, unto one's home, i. e. to receive hospitably," citing Matthew 25:35, 38, and 43. To take in a stranger was to bring an outsider under your own roof.

Gill points out that during His earthly life Jesus was hungry and thirsty and was ministered to "by good women out of their substance," yet most of the righteous, as Gill notes on Matthew 25:37, had never seen Him in the flesh. They served Him through His people.

The King names the stranger right alongside the hungry and the sick. Welcoming an outsider is not a lesser kindness in His eyes; it is one of the ways He is received. Gill's phrase "in his members" captures the point: Christ is so joined to His people that to take them in is to take Him in.

The repeated question also slows the reader down. Matthew records three verses of "when saw we thee" (Matthew 25:37-39) before the King answers. Each need is named again, as if to say that none of these small acts went unseen by Him.