What Does Matthew 12:29 Mean?
Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and strip away his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will strip his house.
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
Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.THE KEY
The house is entered by binding its keeper first: the grip on the goods must be interrupted before they can be taken.
THE MEANING
The verse presents deliverance as an interruption of the grip that protects a domain: the one holding power is bound before the house is entered. Once that restraint is in place, the goods are exposed to seizure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what a stronger power holds is permanently beyond reach dissolves here: the holder can be restrained, and the guarded house can be entered.
THE ROOT
δήσῃ
dēsē
GROWS FROM
δε-
de-
To tie or bind.
“binds” in this verse is dēsē. The Greek word pictures the strong man’s freedom of action being tied up before the house is entered. English can make “bind” sound like a detail; the same word family also names bonds and the people held in them, joining restraint with captivity.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: Bond, tie, or fetter.
δέσμος
The bond is the restraint that makes the strong man unable to guard his goods.
desmios: A bound person or prisoner.
δέσμιος
This branch names the condition that follows binding: the one who held power can himself be held.
ἰσχυρόν
ischyron
GROWS FROM
ἰσχυ-
ischy-
Strength, force, or capacity to prevail.
“strong man” in this verse is ischyron. The word points to strength as an active capacity, not merely a reputation for power. The verse sets that capacity beside binding: strength can dominate a house, yet it can also be restrained.
ALSO GROWS
ischys: Strength or might.
ἰσχύς
This is the force that lets the strong man hold the house and its goods.
ischyō: To be strong, have power, or prevail.
ἰσχύω
The contrast is between power that can act freely and power stopped by binding.
THE PATTERN
What a captor holds becomes accessible when the power guarding it is overcome or restrained.
But thus says the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty will be taken away, and the plunder of the terrifying one will slip free. For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will deliver your children.But when a stronger one comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him his full armor, in which he trusted, and distributes his spoils.Since then the children share in common flesh and blood, he likewise shared in those same things with them, so that through death he might make idle the one who held the strength of death, the Slanderer.THE THREAD
And I will give to you the keys of the governance of the heavens, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in the heavens, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in the heavens.The same Greek verb, δέω (deō), appears here as “bind” and in Jesus’ words about binding on earth. In this verse, binding restrains the keeper before the house is entered; in Matthew 16:19, the same root links binding with the authority to loose.
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