What Does Matthew 23:4 Mean in the King James?
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
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 Greek calls the weight-bearing a binding: those who fasten loads onto others will not move even one of them.
THE MEANING
This verse exposes the weight of demands fastened onto you and the refusal to help carry or shift them. The load and the withheld help belong to the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a demand becomes right because someone in authority places it on you, or that you must bear it alone.
THE ROOT
δέσμευουσιν
desmeuousin
GROWS FROM
δεσμεύω
desmeuō
To bind or fasten; its word family carries the sense of bonds.
The verb translated “bind” belongs to the same Greek family as bonds and prisoners. The load is pictured as fastened onto people, while the binders keep their hands out of moving it.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: Bond, chain, or tie
δεσμός
The shared word family makes the binding in this verse sound like more than assigning work: it fastens people to a load.
desmios: Prisoner; one held in bonds
δέσμιος
This branch names someone by the bond holding them, sharpening the force of a burden fastened onto another person.
φορτία
phortia
GROWS FROM
φορτίον
phortion
A load or cargo carried by someone.
English “burdens” can sound like abstract trouble, but φορτίον is a load carried, and φορτίζω is to load someone. In this Gospel, Jesus calls his own φορτίον light, making the contrast about the load placed on people and how it is borne.
ALSO GROWS
phortion: Load, cargo, burden
φορτίον
The same noun appears in Matthew 11:30, where Jesus calls his burden light; the word itself does not require a crushing load.
phortizō: To load or burden
φορτίζω
Matthew 11:28 uses this verb for people who are heavy laden, keeping the act of loading and the carried load in one word family.
THE PATTERN
A load turns crushing when those who assign it leave the carrier to bear it alone.
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.THE THREAD
Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.The word translated “borne” in Matthew 23:4 comes from βαστάζω (bastazō), the same verb used here for bearing one another’s burdens. Matthew exposes one-way loading; Galatians names shared carrying.
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