What Does Matthew 14:4 Mean?
For John said to him, It is not permitted for you to have her.
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
For John said unto him, It is not lawful for thee to have her.THE KEY
The verse separates possession from permission: having someone does not make the relationship lawful.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present boundary: being able to hold or claim someone does not make the relationship rightful. It exposes the gap between access and permission in the act of having a person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
That having someone, or being able to take them, is enough to make a relationship rightful.
THE ROOT
ἔχειν
echein
GROWS FROM
ἔχω
echō
To hold, have, or keep.
The infinitive translated “have” comes from ἔχω (echō), a verb of holding or keeping. Its branches can mean retaining, sharing in, or holding together, so the word reaches beyond bare access: the way a person is held matters, while the sentence names the boundary around that claim.
ALSO GROWS
katechō: Hold fast, retain, possess.
κατέχω
This branch makes the sense of holding explicit and sharpens the distinction between possessing someone and having a rightful relationship.
metechō: Share in, partake.
μετέχω
This branch carries the root into participation, suggesting that relationship involves sharing rather than one-sided possession.
synechō: Hold together, constrain, press upon.
συνέχω
This branch shows how holding can also bind or press upon another, bringing the weight of the claim in this verse into view.
THE PATTERN
A person’s ability to take or hold something does not make the claim rightful.
Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.Do not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife. It is your brother's nakedness.All things stand open to me, but not all things bring together. All things stand open to me, but I will not be brought under the power of anyone.THE THREAD
But because of sexual wandering, let each man hold his own wife, and each woman hold her own husband.The same root, ἔχω (echō, “hold, have”), appears in “have” here and as ἐχέτω (echetō, “let ... have”) in the linked verse’s reciprocal pair. That pairing makes the boundary visible: possession alone cannot make a relationship rightful.
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