What Does Matthew 10:15 Mean?
Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.
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
Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.THE KEY
Judgment is not presented as one flat outcome: the city that refuses the messengers faces a burden less bearable than Sodom’s.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you as someone who encounters a message: how it is received carries weight. It holds Sodom’s judgment and the city’s harsher judgment in the same frame, without erasing either. The comparison turns on what can be borne.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every refusal carries the same weight: the verse makes a city’s response to the messengers it receives matter in the day of judgment.
THE ROOT
ἀνεκτότερον
anektoteron
GROWS FROM
ἀνέχομαι
anechomai
To bear, endure, or hold up under; the comparative adjective here means more endurable or more bearable.
The word frames the comparison in terms of what can be borne: Sodom is not spared, yet the judgment facing this city is less bearable. “More tolerable” carries a measure of severity inside the comparison.
ALSO GROWS
anektos: Able to be borne or endured.
ἀνεκτός
The verse uses its comparative form to say that judgment is more bearable for Sodom than for the city.
anochē: The act of bearing with or holding back.
ἀνοχή
This related word keeps the sense of bearing in view, showing how the verse weighs what each can endure.
κρίσεως
kriseōs
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krinō
To judge or decide, distinguishing between cases through a decision.
The Greek word for judgment belongs to a family of words for judging and making a decision. The comparison in this verse presents distinct measures of judgment rather than a single undifferentiated outcome.
ALSO GROWS
kritēs: One who judges or decides.
κριτής
The branch names the one who makes the judgment the verse describes.
krima: A decision or the result of judging.
κρίμα
It shows the decision side of “judgment,” which the verse presents as differing in severity.
THE PATTERN
Greater responsibility or received witness brings greater accountability.
As I live, says the Lord LORD, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters.But the one who did not know, and did what deserves blows, will be beaten with few blows. To everyone to whom much is given, much will be sought from him, and to whom much has been placed beside him, they will ask all the more of him.My brothers, do not become many teachers, knowing that we shall receive a greater judgment.THE THREAD
But I say to you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that city.Luke repeats the same comparison in another instruction about receiving messengers, keeping the city’s response beside the severity of its judgment. The shared phrase makes the measure clear: Sodom is not excused, while the other city’s burden is greater.
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