What Does Matthew 17:23 Mean in the King James?
And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again. And they were exceeding sorry.
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 verb for being raised also means being awakened, so death is named as real without becoming the last word.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the killing and the raising together: violence reaches him, but it does not finish the story. The promise is specific, he is raised on the third day, and the disciples’ grief remains real, becoming overwhelming as they hear it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death has the final word over him.
THE ROOT
ἐγερθήσεται
egerthēsetai
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω (egeirō), stem ἐγερ- (eger-)
To rouse, awaken, or raise.
“raised again” in this verse is egerthēsetai. The same verb can describe waking someone from sleep and raising the dead, so “raised” carries the image of awakening. The passive follows “they shall kill him”: those who inflict death do not determine what happens next.
ALSO GROWS
egeirō: To awaken or rouse; also, to raise from the dead.
ἐγείρω
The verb gathers waking and resurrection into one image, opening up more than a return to a previous state.
egersis: A raising or resurrection.
ἔγερσις
This related noun appears in Matthew 27:53, linking the verb’s picture of being raised with resurrection.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture’s resurrection pattern, death is real but does not hold the last action; the dead are raised into life.
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:THE THREAD
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.Both verses use ἐγείρω (egeirō, “rouse” or “raise”). Matthew puts the raising in the passive; here Jesus says, “I will raise it up,” making the shared verb’s action explicit.
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