What Does Matthew 23:31 Mean in the King James?
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
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
Their lineage becomes a witness stand: the very people named as children of prophet-killers testify against themselves.
THE MEANING
The verse places you inside the testimony your own words give: family resemblance shows in what you repeat, not only in whose history you claim. An admission of descent becomes an indictment when the silencing of truth is alive in you now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Claiming reverence for past truth-tellers does not prove you are free of the pattern that killed them; the way you meet truth now may expose that same inheritance.
THE ROOT
μαρτυρεῖτε
martyreite
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
bear witness; testify
“witnesses” in this verse is martyreite. This word belongs to the same family as the noun for a witness and the word for testimony. The hearers’ own speech becomes testimony about the identity their actions embody.
ALSO GROWS
martys: witness
μάρτυς
The noun names the witness; here the verb makes the hearers themselves bear witness against themselves.
martyria: testimony
μαρτυρία
The related noun makes the courtroom force of the verse visible: their acknowledgment stands as testimony.
φονευσάντων
phoneusantōn
GROWS FROM
φον-
phon-
murder; kill violently
This word shares a family with terms for both murder and the murderer. English “killed” carries the act, while the Greek family also keeps the act and its agent close together in the verse’s charge of inherited violence.
ALSO GROWS
phoneus: murderer
φονεύς
This names the agent from the same word-family as the act attributed to the ancestors.
phonos: murder; killing
φόνος
This names the violence itself, linking the descendants’ claim of kinship to the deed that defines the lineage.
προφήτας
prophētas
GROWS FROM
φη-
phē-
speak; declare
“prophets” in this verse is prophētas. The word for prophet is formed around speaking or declaring. The people killed are voices bearing a message, so the violence named here is also the silencing of those voices.
ALSO GROWS
prophēteia: prophecy; prophetic message
προφητεία
This related word names the message carried by the prophets whose deaths are at issue.
prophēteuō: prophesy; speak prophetically
προφητεύω
This verb names the act of speaking that makes the prophet’s message public and exposes it to rejection.
THE PATTERN
The treatment of truth-tellers reveals whether a claimed break from past violence has become real.
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy.Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres.Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:THE THREAD
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,The Greek witness-family in this verse also names Jesus as “the faithful witness” in Revelation. The shared root opens a contrast: here the hearers testify against themselves, while there witness names a life aligned with its testimony.
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