What Does Matthew 13:55 Mean in the King James?
Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The crowd can name Jesus’s household in detail, yet that very familiarity becomes the limit of what it sees.
THE MEANING
You can know true things about someone, their work, their mother, their siblings, and still not fully know them. Familiar details can make a person seem already explained, even when they do not contain the whole of that person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Knowing someone’s family and occupation means you know all there is to know about them.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφοί
adelphoi
GROWS FROM
δελφύς
delphys
Womb; traditionally connected with the word-family for siblings born of the same womb.
The Greek word translated “brethren” carries an image of shared birth. These are not vague connections: the verse names Jesus’s concrete family ties, while those true details still do not exhaust who he is.
ALSO GROWS
adelphos: brother, male sibling
ἀδελφός
The singular form of the family word used for “brethren” in this verse.
adelphē: sister, female sibling
ἀδελφή
The feminine sibling term from the same Greek word-family, showing how kinship is named through shared birth.
THE PATTERN
People can mistake a person’s visible origins for the limits of who that person is.
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country.THE THREAD
For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.“Brother” here is ἀδελφός (adelphos, brother), from the same word-family as ἀδελφοί (adelphoi, brethren) in Matthew 13:55. The family word that names Jesus’s siblings also extends to a kinship beyond the household named in this verse.
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