What Does Matthew 22:15 Mean in the King James?
Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.
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 hidden move is that they turn conversation itself into a trap.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes a familiar maneuver now: someone frames a conversation so that every answer can be used to corner the speaker. Beneath the exchange sits a purpose to capture, and that purpose changes the meaning of the words being offered.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An apparently ordinary question is not always an honest search for understanding; speech can be arranged to make someone vulnerable.
THE ROOT
παγιδεύσωσιν
pagideusōsin
GROWS FROM
παγιδ-
pagid-
trap, snare
“entangle” in this verse is pagideusōsin. The Greek verb carries the image of a snare: their aim is to make speech the mechanism that catches him. The same word family names both the trap and the act of setting one, so the conversation is shaped as capture before an answer is given.
ALSO GROWS
pagis: snare, trap
παγίς
The noun names the device behind the verb’s image: a trap prepared to catch what enters it.
pagideuō: to ensnare, trap
παγιδεύω
This is the verb’s dictionary form, making clear that their purpose is capture through his words.
THE PATTERN
Speech becomes a snare when its aim is to capture a person rather than understand an answer.
Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words:A man that flattereth his neighbour spreadeth a net for his feet.And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they might deliver him unto the power and authority of the governor.THE THREAD
Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.The Greek word translated “snare” here belongs to the same παγιδ- family as Matthew’s “entangle.” Matthew shows the trap being set through speech; this verse names the trap and the reproach into which someone can fall.
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