What Does Matthew 15:19 Mean?
For out of the heart come evil reckonings, murders, adulteries, unlawful unions, thefts, false witness, harmful speech.
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 out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:THE KEY
The verb “proceed” makes the heart a source: the harms in the list are the inner life made visible.
THE MEANING
The verse names the heart as a source from which harm can emerge now: murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and blasphemy. These acts are not detached from the inner person; they come forth from it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that uncleanness comes only from what enters a person from outside: the heart itself is named as a source of what defiles.
THE ROOT
καρδία
kardia
GROWS FROM
καρδ-
kard-
Heart; the inward center of thought and intention.
Here, the heart is the inward center from which acts emerge, not simply the seat of feeling. Its word family also names a knower of hearts and hardness of heart, holding inner life as both knowable and capable of becoming hardened.
ALSO GROWS
kardiognōstēs: Knower of hearts (Acts 15:8).
καρδιογνώστης
This compound presents the heart as an inward center that can be known.
sklērokardia: Hardness of heart (Matthew 19:8).
σκληροκαρδία
The same heart can become hardened, showing an inward condition whose shape can appear outwardly.
ἐκπορεύονται
ekporeuontai
GROWS FROM
πορευ-
poreu-
To go, travel, or proceed; with ἐκ (ek), “out,” to go out or come forth.
“proceed” in this verse is ekporeuontai. The verb pictures these acts as coming out from a source, making the list an account of emergence as much as wrongdoing. The same motion word can describe a word proceeding from a mouth, making the heart the source named here.
ALSO GROWS
poreuomai: Go or travel.
πορεύομαι
The shared verb family carries the sense of movement, giving “proceed” a direction and a source.
ekporeuomai: Go out or come forth.
ἐκπορεύομαι
The prefix ἐκ (ek, “out”) makes the movement explicitly outward from its source.
διαλογισμοί
dialogismoi
GROWS FROM
λογίζ-
logiz-
Reasoning, reckoning, or considering.
“evil reckonings” in this verse is dialogismoi. English “thoughts” can sound like isolated mental images, while this word also carries the sense of reasoning and deliberation. The list begins with what takes shape in inward judgment before naming acts that move outward.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, count, or account.
λογίζομαι
This related verb gives the thought-family a sense of weighing or reckoning.
logismos: Reasoning or calculation.
λογισμός
This related noun names the working of thought itself, showing how inward judgments can take form before outward acts.
THE PATTERN
What takes shape within a person emerges outward as speech and action.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.A good human brings out good from the good treasure of the heart, and an evil human brings out evil from the evil treasure of the heart, for from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured. Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
But he answered and said, It is written, Humankind shall not live by bread alone, but by every word going out through the mouth of God.Matthew 4:4 uses the same Greek verb ἐκπορεύομαι (ekporeuomai, “go out” or “come forth”) that appears here as “proceed.” There, a word comes forth from God’s mouth; here, the listed harms come forth from the heart, revealing how the source shapes what emerges.
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