What Does Matthew 27:39 Mean in the King James?
And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,
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 moving head turns contempt into a public gesture, and echoes the language of the suffering voice in Psalm 22.
THE MEANING
Reviling is not only spoken; it is acted out as the head’s motion makes rejection visible. The one suffering stands exposed while passersby move on, holding together the cruelty of ridicule and the casualness with which pain is dismissed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that many voices make a true verdict: the verse exposes their gesture as reviling, not evidence about the sufferer’s worth.
THE ROOT
κινοῦντες
kinountes
GROWS FROM
κιν-
Move or set in motion; shake.
“wagging” in this verse is kinountes. The verb names motion, not a private feeling: the reviling travels into the body as a visible shake of the head. Psalm 22:7 uses the same motion-and-head image beside laughter and scorn, so the gesture carries the vocabulary of lament as well as ridicule.
ALSO GROWS
kinēsis: movement; motion
κίνησις
This related noun is rendered “moving” in John 5:3; the word family can name the motion of water as well as the motion of a head.
kinētos: movable; capable of being moved
κινητός
This branch keeps the root’s sense of physical movement in view: “wagging” describes an enacted gesture, not just an inward attitude.
THE PATTERN
When suffering is met with contempt, mockery appears in both speech and gesture.
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,I also could speak as ye do: if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days,THE THREAD
All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,Psalm 22:7 pairs scorn with a shaking head, using the same Greek motion-and-head language as Matthew. The gesture therefore carries the psalm’s language of suffering inside the scene of ridicule.
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