What Does Matthew 14:21 Mean?
And those who ate were about five thousand men, apart from the women and children.
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 they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children.THE KEY
The five thousand are only the men in the count; women and children are outside the number, not outside the meal.
THE MEANING
The verse presents its figure as a count of men, with women and children named beyond it. The count is not the size of the whole gathering: those left unnumbered also belong to the meal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that five thousand is the total crowd: the verse itself places women and children beyond that count.
THE ROOT
χωρίς
chōris
GROWS FROM
χωρ-
chōr-
Place or space; χωρὶς means apart from or without.
The Greek marks women and children as apart from the tally, not absent from the gathering. The boundary belongs to the count: the verse names them among those who ate, beyond the number it gives.
ALSO GROWS
chōra: region, land, or place
χώρα
This related word for a place or region echoes the spatial sense behind being set apart from the count.
chōrion: place or plot of land
χωρίον
It shares the same place-or-space stem, making the distinction here a boundary in the tally rather than a boundary around the meal.
THE PATTERN
A provision’s number marks what is counted, while its reach appears in who eats and what remains.
And the one attending him said, How shall I place this before a hundred men? He said again, Give to the people, that they may eat. For thus says the LORD, They shall eat, and some shall remain.And those who ate were four thousand men, apart from women and children.When they were filled, he said to his disciples, Gather up the broken pieces that remain, so that nothing perishes.THE THREAD
And those who ate were four thousand men, apart from women and children.Matthew repeats χωρὶς γυναικῶν καὶ παιδίων (chōris gynaikōn kai paidiōn, apart from women and children). The shared phrase makes the counting boundary visible: the number is a count of men, while the meal reaches more people than the figure names.
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