What Does Matthew 14:2 Mean?
And said to his servants, This is John the Immerser; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason strength is at work in 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
And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do shew forth themselves in him.THE KEY
Herod sees power at work, then mistakes his explanation of its source for the truth.
THE MEANING
This verse shows that an action can be real while the story told about its source is mistaken. Herod hears of mighty works and names them as John’s return from death; the powers are at work in Jesus, while that identification remains Herod’s inference.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Powerful activity does not prove the source you assign to it. Certainty about its source can still be an inference.
THE ROOT
δυνάμεις
dynameis
GROWS FROM
δύναμ-
dynam-
Ability or capacity to act; power.
“strength is at work” in this verse is dynameis. The word names power as capacity, while the next verb says that power is actively at work in him. Herod recognizes the activity, then assigns it a source.
ALSO GROWS
dýnamai: To be able; to have power.
δύναμαι
The related verb presents power as the capacity to act, beneath the visible work.
dynatós: Able; powerful.
δυνατός
This related word describes a person or thing by what it is capable of doing.
ἐνεργοῦσιν
energousin
GROWS FROM
ἔργον
érgon
Work or deed; with ἐν (en), the sense is working within or operating.
“do shew forth themselves” in this verse is energousin. Under “shew forth themselves” is an active verb: the powers are operating in him. The verse distinguishes that activity from Herod’s explanation of who is acting.
ALSO GROWS
energéō: To work; to be active or operate.
ἐνεργέω
This is the verb form behind the verse’s description of the powers at work in him.
enérgeia: Working; operation or activity.
ἐνέργεια
The related noun names the activity itself, linking power with its operation.
THE PATTERN
Power becomes visible through its activity, though people can still misidentify its source.
You are the God who makes wonders; you make known your strength among the peoples.Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not trust. The works that I do in my Father's nature bear witness to me.How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Set-Apart Breath and with power, who went through, doing good and healing all who were pressed down by the Slanderer, for God was with him.THE THREAD
But you will take hold of power when the Set-Apart Breath comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and to the farthest edge of the ground.The Greek word for “power” here belongs to the same word family as Matthew’s “mighty works.” Matthew describes that power operating in a person; Acts describes power received and expressed in witness.
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