What Does Matthew 10:1 Mean?
And when he had called his twelve disciples to himself, he gave them power over unclean breaths, to cast them out and to heal every disease and every weakness.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.THE KEY
Authority here takes the form of releasing what afflicts and tending what is sick.
THE MEANING
The verse presents authority as a gift entrusted to learners, made visible in driving out unclean breath and healing every kind of sickness and disease. What harms is removed; what suffers is met with care. The reader sees power expressed through release and restoration.
THE ROOT
ἐξουσίαν
exousian
GROWS FROM
ἔξεστι
exesti
Permission or a right to act; authority.
“power” in this verse is exousian. The word carries the sense of an authorized capacity, and the verse shows what that capacity is for: release and healing. Its force is made concrete by what it can remove and restore.
ALSO GROWS
exesti: It is permitted; it is possible.
ἔξεστι
This related form brings the sense of permission into the authority entrusted to the learners.
exousiazō: To exercise authority.
ἐξουσιάζω
This verb shows the same word family in action: authority is exercised against what afflicts.
πνευμάτων
pneumatōn
GROWS FROM
πνέω
pneō
To breathe or blow.
The word rendered “spirits” is pneuma, which also means breath and wind. English separates these senses, while the Greek word holds them together: the verse speaks of unclean breath being driven out.
ALSO GROWS
pneuma: Breath, wind, or spirit.
πνεῦμα
This is the same word in its base form, showing the shared language behind the verse’s “spirits.”
pnoē: Breath or a gust of wind.
πνοή
This related word keeps breath and wind in the same family of images.
θεραπεύειν
therapeuein
GROWS FROM
θεραπεύω
therapeuō
To attend to or care for; to heal.
“heal” in this verse is therapeuein. The word for healing belongs to a family of attending and service as well as cure. The verse presents restoration as care directed toward the afflicted, alongside the removal of what harms.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: Healing, treatment, or service.
θεραπεία
This noun links healing with the act of attending to someone.
therapōn: Attendant or servant.
θεράπων
This related word carries the family’s sense of care and attendance.
THE PATTERN
Authority takes shape by loosening oppression and restoring what it has afflicted.
Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Set-Apart Breath and with power, who went through, doing good and healing all who were pressed down by the Slanderer, for God was with him.THE THREAD
And to have power to heal sicknesses, and to throw out the demons.The same Greek words for authority, healing, and casting out recur here: exousia, therapeuō, and ekballō. Their shared grouping makes the shape of authority plain: it drives out what afflicts and attends to what is sick.
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