What Does Matthew 10:23 Mean?
When they pursue you in this city, flee into another, for truly I say to you, you will not finish the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
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
But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.THE KEY
“Persecute” means “pursue”: the chase drives you from one city while the journey across Israel is still underway.
THE MEANING
When pursuit closes around you in one city, movement into another remains part of the journey. The saying ties the pace of that journey to a limit: the cities of Israel are not traversed before the Son of Man comes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Leaving one city under pressure means the mission has failed; here, departure changes the route while the journey continues.
THE ROOT
διώκω
diōkō
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
to pursue or chase
“pursue” in this verse is diōkō. The Greek word translated “persecute” carries the image of pursuit. That same pursuit word can describe hostile chasing or pressing toward a goal, so the root shows the force of the chase without making pursuit itself one-sided.
ALSO GROWS
diōgmos: Persecution; the act or experience of being pursued.
διωγμός
This noun keeps the chase inside the English word “persecution”: it is pressure that actively follows after someone.
diōkō: To pursue; in Philippians 3:14, “press toward.”
διώκω
The same word can name purposeful forward pursuit, revealing that the root describes the chase while its direction and purpose shape its force.
THE PATTERN
When danger closes one place, movement carries life or the work into another place.
Now when Pharaoh heard this word, he sought to slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by the well.When they had withdrawn, look, a messenger of the LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, Rise, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word, for Herod will seek the young child to make him perish.And Saul was consenting to his death. And on that day a great pursuit came against the assembly which was at Jerusalem, and they were all scattered through the lands of Judea and Samaria, except the sent ones.THE THREAD
I pursue toward the mark, for the prize of the calling of God from above, in Jesus the Anointed One.“Press toward” translates the same Greek word as “persecute” here: διώκω (diōkō), meaning “pursue.” The shared root reveals pursuit as the common motion, whether it drives someone from a city or carries someone toward a goal.
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