Pronoun – Reflexive plural

Both the reciprocal ‘each other’ and the reflexive ‘themselves’ would refer to the same event, since each individual disciple is speaking to the rest of the group and not literally to himself. This use of the reflexive is only found in the plural where the event engaged in would be done to the entire group. This does not necessarily mean that the reflexive is a reciprocal here – it only means that the plural reflexive does not require that the action of the verb be done to oneself, but to one member of the group.

The reflexive also seems to be interpreted like a possessive at times. In this use, the reflexive pronoun refers to possession as contrasted with what could be someone else’s, meaning something like ‘their own’:

In theory, they could have covered the road with clothes they had gotten from someone else, but the use of the reflexive makes it clear that they did not just have anyone’s clothes in their hands – the real owners of the clothes strewed their own clothes. Thus, this use signals some contrast between what we think the possessive relationship could be (as in merely holding clothes) with what the possessive relationship really is (as in actually owning clothes).