What Does Matthew 17:10 Mean in the King James?
And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come?
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 verse calls them learners at the very moment they question what the scribes say: asking is built into discipleship.
THE MEANING
You can hold a received teaching in one hand and the question it raises in the other. The learners’ “Why then?” makes the gap between a claim about Elijah and present understanding visible. Elijah’s Hebrew name, אֵלִיָּהוּ (Eliyahu, “My God is YHWH”), carries divine allegiance inside the name whose arrival is being discussed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the belief that being a learner means repeating received teaching without asking how it fits.
THE ROOT
μαθηταί
mathētai
GROWS FROM
μαθ-
math-
learn; come to understand
The word for disciples belongs to the learn-family: it names an ongoing relation to learning. Here, the learners embody that relation by bringing a received claim into the open and asking how it fits.
ALSO GROWS
manthanō: learn; come to understand
μανθάνω
Its nasal form belongs to the same μαθ- (math-) learn-family, naming the active process behind the learners’ title.
mathēma: lesson; what is learned
μάθημα
It names what comes from learning, linking the learners to understanding that can still unfold.
πρῶτον
prōton
GROWS FROM
πρῶτ-
prōt-
first; before what follows
“first” in this verse is prōton. The question turns on sequence: why must Elijah come before what follows? The firstness-root keeps the order itself in view, showing that the learners are asking how the sequence is understood.
ALSO GROWS
prōtos: first; foremost
πρῶτος
This is the adjective behind πρῶτον (prōton, “first”), naming precedence in the sequence.
prōtotokos: firstborn
πρωτοτόκος
It carries the same πρῶτ- (prōt-) family into birth order, where “first” marks a place in what follows.
THE PATTERN
Scriptural understanding grows when received words are brought into inquiry and tested for what they mean.
Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.THE THREAD
And he answered and told them, Elias verily cometh first, and restoreth all things; and how it is written of the Son of man, that he must suffer many things, and be set at nought.Mark’s parallel answer repeats πρῶτον (prōton, “first”) from the question, then joins that order to restoration and the Son of Man’s suffering. The shared root makes “first” a hinge: the answer preserves the sequence and reveals what moves through it.
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