What Does Matthew 12:47 Mean?
Then someone said to him, Behold, your mother and your brothers stand outside, seeking to speak with you.
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
Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.THE KEY
Shared birth places them close to Jesus, but the verse still puts them outside the conversation they want.
THE MEANING
His mother and siblings are near enough to send word, yet they remain outside, waiting to speak with him. Their desire is clear, while their access to the conversation is still unresolved. The verse holds closeness and distance together.
THE ROOT
ἀδελφοί
adelphoi
GROWS FROM
ἀδελφ-
adelph-
Sibling, traditionally understood as one born from the same womb
The Greek word for brethren carries the bodily bond of shared birth. The same word appears again when Jesus names his brother in the next verse, where kinship reaches beyond those joined by birth.
ALSO GROWS
philadelphia: Brotherly or sisterly love
φιλαδελφία
The sibling root becomes a word for affection between people who regard one another as family.
adelphotēs: Brotherhood, a community of siblings
ἀδελφότης
The word for shared-birth kinship can also name a wider community bound together as family.
THE PATTERN
The family boundary can widen as kinship is recognized through response to God as well as birth.
For whoever does the will of my Father in the heavens, that one is my brother, and sister, and mother.And he answered, saying to them, My mother and my brothers are these, those who hear the word of God and do it.So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the set-apart ones, and of the household of God.THE THREAD
For whoever does the will of my Father in the heavens, that one is my brother, and sister, and mother.The Greek word translated brethren here reappears as brother in Jesus’ answer. The shared-birth word now reaches beyond biological siblings, as doing the Father’s will also marks kinship.
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