What Does Matthew 15:15 Mean?
Then Peter answered and said to him, Show us this parable.
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 answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable.THE KEY
A parable sets a visible story beside the reality it reveals, and Peter asks for that hidden side to be opened.
THE MEANING
You can stand close to a teaching and still not see what it carries; Peter’s request for explanation belongs inside the passage. Understanding comes as the image is opened beside its meaning, bringing the visible words and the reality they carry together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that hearing a teaching once means its meaning should already be obvious.
THE ROOT
παραβολήν
parabolēn
GROWS FROM
παραβάλλω (paraballō), from παρά (para, “beside”) + βάλλω (ballō, “throw or cast”)
To place or cast beside; a comparison set alongside what it helps reveal.
Παραβολή (parabolē, “parable” or “comparison”) carries the sense of something set beside another thing. Peter’s request shows that the story and the reality it points toward are connected, yet the connection still needs to be opened.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: to throw or cast
βάλλω
Its sense of casting lies beneath the image of a story set beside the reality it illuminates.
paraballō: to place or cast beside; to compare
παραβάλλω
This verb makes the parable’s structure visible: one thing is brought alongside another.
parabolē: a parable or comparison
παραβολή
Peter asks for the comparison to be explained so its hidden correspondence can be seen.
THE PATTERN
What is heard or seen becomes clear when its meaning is opened through asking and explanation.
Uncover my eyes, that I may gaze upon the wonders from your instruction.But without a parable he did not speak to them. Privately, to his own disciples, he untied all things.And he said, How can I, unless someone show me the way? And he urged Philip to come up and sit with him.THE THREAD
Then Jesus let the crowd go and went into the house; and his learners came to him, saying, Make plain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.The disciples make the same request here, using the same Greek word, παραβολή (parabolē, “parable” or “comparison”). The repeated word shows the movement from hearing an image to asking for the reality it sets beside itself.
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