What Does Matthew 12:3 Mean?
But he said to them, Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him?
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 he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him;THE KEY
Jesus turns reading into recognition: the question is whether the reader can see hunger inside the sacred story.
THE MEANING
Here, reading reaches beyond recalling words; it recognizes the hunger named in the story. David is not alone in need: the verse keeps his companions in view too.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse unsettles the belief that reading Scripture is complete once its words are recalled: Jesus asks whether the reader recognizes the hunger inside the story.
THE ROOT
ἐπείνασεν
epeinasen
GROWS FROM
πειν-
pein-
Hunger; the felt lack of food and need for sustenance.
“hungry” in this verse is epeinasen. The Greek word names hunger as a bodily need shared by David and his companions. Its word family carries that need into other scenes too, so hunger is not sealed inside this remembered story.
ALSO GROWS
peinōn: hungry; one who is hungering
πεινῶν
The same root presents hunger as a state a person is in, not an idea apart from the body.
peina: hunger; famine
πείνα
The noun names the need itself, showing the same root in both the experience of hunger and its condition.
ἀνέγνωτε
anegnōte
GROWS FROM
γινώσκω
ginōskō
To know, perceive, or recognize.
“read” in this verse is anegnōte. The Greek verb for reading belongs to the family of knowing and perceiving. Jesus’ question opens a gap between encountering the text and recognizing what it holds: this story includes hunger.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: knowledge; knowing
γνῶσις
This related form makes the connection between reading and knowing visible in the language.
anaginōskō: to read; recognize through reading
ἀναγινώσκω
This is the verb family behind the word used here, joining the act of reading with recognition.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
דּוֹד
dōd
Beloved, dear one; also a kinship term.
David’s name belongs to a Hebrew word family of belovedness and kinship. Here, the beloved one is remembered in hunger; the name does not make his need disappear from the story.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: beloved; dear one; uncle
דּוֹד
The shared consonants carry affection and kinship within the name’s word family.
dōdîm: loves; caresses
דּוֹדִים
The same consonants appear in language of intimate love, extending the name’s sense beyond a label.
THE PATTERN
Sacred memory keeps bodily hunger visible inside the life of faith.
So the priest gave him set-apart bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the faces, which was removed from before the LORD, to set in hot bread on the day it was taken away.Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.For I hungered, and you gave me food; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in.THE THREAD
For I hungered, and you gave me food; I thirsted, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you gathered me in.Matthew 12:3 uses ἐπείνασεν (epeinasen), meaning “he hungered”; Matthew 25:35 uses the same Greek root, πειν- (pein-), in “I was an hungred.” The shared word carries hunger from David’s remembered story into another scene where it is still present.
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