What Does Matthew 13:13 Mean?
Therefore I speak to them in parables, because looking, they do not see; and hearing, they do not hear, nor do they put it together.
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
Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.THE KEY
The barrier is not lack of exposure: what the eyes and ears take in never comes together as understanding.
THE MEANING
You can see and hear words without their meaning coming together in you. The senses receive, but understanding does not follow. The verse names the gap between contact with something and perceiving what it means.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that seeing or hearing something is the same as understanding it.
THE ROOT
συνίουσιν
syniousin
GROWS FROM
συνίημι
syniēmi
To bring or put together; hence, to understand by joining what has been perceived.
“put it together” in this verse is syniousin. The Greek verb for understanding carries the sense of bringing things together. The eyes and ears are working, but what they receive does not join into comprehension.
ALSO GROWS
synesis: Understanding, discernment.
σύνεσις
This related word names the comprehension missing when seeing and hearing remain unjoined.
synetos: Discerning, able to understand.
συνετός
This related word describes someone able to gather what is perceived into understanding.
THE PATTERN
Eyes and ears can register what is present while understanding fails to gather its meaning.
Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear and respond, to this day.And he said, Go, and say to this people, Hear and hear again, but do not discern; see and see again, but do not perceive.Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?THE THREAD
For the heart of this people has grown thick, and their ears are heavy of hearing, and they have closed their eyes; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and put it together with their heart, and turn around, and I should heal them.Here, “understand” is συνῶσιν (synōsin), from the same Greek root συνίημι (syniēmi) as “understand” in verse 13. The verse names the heart as the place where seeing and hearing come together into perception.
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