What Does Matthew 11:26 Mean?
Yes, Father, for so it seemed good before your face.
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
Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.THE KEY
What the translation calls “seemed good” is the Father’s good pleasure at work in how truth is revealed.
THE MEANING
The Father’s pleasure is present in how truth becomes known: what self-assurance cannot claim is given to the receptive. Knowing arrives as a gift held within the Father’s regard.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that spiritual understanding can be secured by intellectual rank: revelation is received, not won as proof of superiority.
THE ROOT
εὐδοκία
eudokia
GROWS FROM
δοκ-
dok-
The Greek word εὐδοκία combines εὖ (eu, well) with the δοκ- family of thinking, regarding, or seeming; it means good pleasure or delight.
“Seemed good” carries more than a passing impression: εὐδοκία names good pleasure. The following phrase, “in thy sight,” places that pleasure before the Father, as the way revelation unfolds under his regard.
ALSO GROWS
dokeō: Think, consider, or seem
δοκέω
This verb shows the thought or regard within the word family; here, the Father’s regard is expressed as good pleasure.
doxa: Opinion, reputation, honor, or glory
δόξα
This related word carries the sense of what is thought or held in esteem, echoing how the Father’s regard sets the measure of what is honored.
eudokeō: Be pleased with or take delight in
εὐδοκέω
This verb makes explicit the delight carried by εὐδοκία: the verse speaks of what pleases the Father.
THE PATTERN
The Father’s good pleasure makes revelation a gift that overturns human measures of worth.
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.In that hour Jesus leapt for joy in the Set-Apart Breath, and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of the heavens and the earth, that you hid these things away from the wise and the discerning, and uncovered them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it pleased you before your face.But God picked out the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and God picked out the weak things of the world to shame the strong.THE THREAD
In that hour Jesus leapt for joy in the Set-Apart Breath, and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of the heavens and the earth, that you hid these things away from the wise and the discerning, and uncovered them to babes. Yes, Father, for so it pleased you before your face.Luke repeats the same Greek εὐδοκία (“good pleasure”) phrase and ties it directly to what is hidden from the wise and revealed to babes. The shared wording makes the Father’s pleasure the hinge of the reversal: revelation is given where status expects to own it.
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