What Does Matthew 27:14 Mean in the King James?
And he answered him to never a word; insomuch that the governor marvelled greatly.
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 silence gives the governor no answer, yet it is the governor who is left astonished.
THE MEANING
When a demand for explanation presses in, silence can carry its own weight and unsettle the one expecting an answer. The verse holds open a moment in which authority does not control what is spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that silence under accusation means guilt or defeat; here, the governor is astonished by it.
THE ROOT
ἀπεκρίθη
apekrithē
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krinō
To separate or distinguish; by extension, to decide or judge.
The Greek verb translated “answered” belongs to the same word family as κρίσις, “judgment,” while ἀπόκρισις means “answer.” English hides that the silence sits inside a judicial exchange: no verbal defense is given, and the governor himself is left astonished.
ALSO GROWS
krisis: Judgment; a decision.
κρίσις
This branch places the answer within a scene of judgment, where a response is expected but none comes.
apokrisis: An answer or response.
ἀπόκρισις
This noun names the kind of speech withheld here: not even one word is offered.
THE PATTERN
Silence under accusation can leave the demand for a defense unanswered and expose the limits of the one making it.
But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth.He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:THE THREAD
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.Isaiah gives the silence in Matthew its shape: the oppressed one does not open his mouth under pressure. The governor’s astonishment makes that silence visible as a presence the demand for a defense cannot command.
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