What Does Matthew 27:52 Mean in the King James?
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
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 grave opens before the sleepers rise: what looks sealed is not beyond awakening.
THE MEANING
For you now, death is pictured as sleep: the bodies remain present, the graves open, and the sleepers rise. The verse holds burial and awakening together without reducing the body to an afterthought.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The grave’s closure is final, and the body is beyond return.
THE ROOT
κεκοιμημένων
kekoimēmenōn
GROWS FROM
κοιμ-
koim-
To sleep or fall asleep.
“slept” in this verse is kekoimēmenōn. The word-family carries sleep into κοιμητήριον (koimētērion, sleeping place; later, cemetery). Since the phrase describes bodies, the sleep-language stays anchored to bodies rather than making them disappear from the scene.
ALSO GROWS
koimēsis: Sleep or repose
κοίμησις
This noun comes from the same sleep-family and shows that the image is carried by the Greek word itself.
koimētērion: Sleeping place; later, cemetery
κοιμητήριον
The word for a cemetery preserves the same picture of the dead as sleepers.
ἠγέρθησαν
ēgerthēsan
GROWS FROM
ἐγειρ-
egeir-
To wake, rouse, or raise.
“arose” in this verse is ēgerthēsan. The root speaks both of waking and of being raised, so the verse holds awakening and bodily rising in one word-family. Matthew uses its related noun for Jesus’s rising in the next verse, carrying the same language forward.
ALSO GROWS
egersis: Rising; resurrection
ἔγερσις
Matthew 27:53 uses this noun for Jesus’s resurrection, extending the same rise-word within the scene.
synegeirō: Raise together
συνεγείρω
This compound keeps the same raising root and adds togetherness, showing how the root can speak of shared rising.
ἀνεῴχθησαν
aneōchthēsan
GROWS FROM
ἀνοιγ-
anoig-
To open.
This word-family reaches from an opened grave to opened understanding. Matthew keeps the physical opening before us, while the wider family lets an opening also mean that something becomes accessible.
ALSO GROWS
dianoigō: Open up
διανοίγω
Luke 24:45 uses this related verb when understanding is opened, extending the image from barriers to perception.
anoixis: Opening
ἄνοιξις
This noun names the act of opening and preserves the same root beneath the opened graves.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts death’s apparent stillness as sleep that can give way to waking and rising.
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.THE THREAD
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.“Them that slept” translates κοιμάω (koimaō, to fall asleep), the same Greek verb-family as Matthew’s “which slept.” Here, the sleepers connect the opened graves to the firstfruits of those who rise.
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