What Does Matthew 15:1 Mean?
Then the writers and the separated ones from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying,
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 came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,THE KEY
The scribes’ title grows from the Greek word for a written letter, placing the keepers of the text face-to-face with the person it points toward.
THE MEANING
The verse brings the keepers of written teaching into direct presence with Jesus; interpretation stands face-to-face with the one it names. The words they handle and the living person they concern occupy one scene.
THE ROOT
γραμματεῖς
grammateis
GROWS FROM
γράμμα
gramma
A letter or written character; a mark made in writing.
“writers” in this verse is grammateis. The Greek word for “scribes” grows from γράμμα (gramma, letter or written character), carrying the mark of writing inside the title. The verse places those formed around written words before Jesus, where the text’s keepers stand in the presence of the person it points toward.
ALSO GROWS
grammateus: Scribe or secretary.
γραμματεύς
The singular form names the same role as γραμματεῖς and carries the written-letter root.
grammateia: Scribal office or secretariat.
γραμματεία
This branch names the work or office organized around written records.
grammatikos: Skilled in letters; grammatical.
γραμματικός
This branch describes a person or skill shaped by letters and written language.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver; bring out from constriction into spaciousness.
The verse’s Greek Ἰησοῦ (Iēsou, Jesus) carries the Hebrew name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua, deliverance), from יָשַׁע (yasha, deliver). The one at the center of the scene is not only a teacher being approached; his name carries the movement from narrowness into spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: To deliver or bring out.
יָשַׁע
This verb is the root action carried in the name Yeshua.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the release or rescue that grows from the root.
hoshia: He delivered; he brought out.
הוֹשִׁיעַ
This form makes the root’s deliverance an accomplished action.
יְרוּשָׁלַיִם
Yerushalayim
GROWS FROM
שלם
sh-l-m
Whole, complete, intact.
The verse’s Greek Ἱεροσολύμων (Hierosolymōn, Jerusalem) names יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (Yerushalayim), whose name carries the consonantal family of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness). The visitors come from a place whose name holds the larger movement toward wholeness, even as the verse leaves their purpose unstated.
ALSO GROWS
shalom: Wholeness; well-being.
שָׁלוֹם
This familiar branch shows the root’s sense of an intact, whole condition.
shalem: Whole; complete.
שָׁלֵם
This form names the state of being brought to completeness.
hishlim: To complete; bring to completion.
הִשְׁלִים
This verb expresses the root as movement toward a whole condition.
THE PATTERN
The written witness draws its interpreters toward the person it names.
Then I say, Here, I come. In the roll of the book it is written upon me.Search the writings, for you think that in them you have the life of the ages, and these are the ones that bear witness about me.And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he carried them through all the writings, the things concerning himself.THE THREAD
Who has also made us enough to be servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the breath, for the letter kills, but the breath makes alive.The Greek word translated “letter” is γράμματος (grammatos), a form of γράμμα (gramma), the root inside γραμματεῖς (grammateis, scribes). It opens the scene further by placing written authority beside the distinction between the letter and life given by the breath.
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