What Does Matthew 15:29 Mean?
And Jesus crossed over from there and came beside the sea of Galilee, and he went up the mountain and sat down there.
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 Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.THE KEY
The Greek gives both “departed” and “went up” the same root, so leaving and ascent are one movement carried in different directions.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to your movement from one place toward another: leaving, drawing near, rising, and finally sitting. Motion does not remain endless; it arrives at a place of settled presence.
THE ROOT
μεταβὰς
metabás
GROWS FROM
βαίνω
βαίνω (baínō): to go, step, or move from place to place.
“crossed over” in this verse is metabás. Matthew uses two forms from βαίνω (baínō) in this verse: μεταβὰς (metabás), “departed,” and ἀναβὰς (anabás), “went up.” English gives them separate verbs, while Greek keeps the shared sense of going and lets the prefixes supply the direction; the journey is one continuous movement.
ALSO GROWS
metabaínō: to pass from one place to another; to move on
μεταβαίνω
This compound uses the shared βαίνω root for the movement KJV renders “departed.”
anabaínō: to go up; to ascend
ἀναβαίνω
The verse uses this same root with ἀνά- (“up”) for “went up,” linking ascent to the earlier departure.
katabaínō: to go down; to descend
καταβαίνω
The same root with κατά- (“down”) shows how direction changes while the underlying movement remains.
THE PATTERN
A mountain ascent becomes a threshold where encounter or calling takes shape.
And Moses climbed up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mount, saying, Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel.And when he had sent the crowds away, he went climbing up into the mountain privately to pray; and when evening came, he was there alone.And he went up into the mountain, and called to himself whom he would, and they came to him.THE THREAD
And when he had sent the crowds away, he went climbing up into the mountain privately to pray; and when evening came, he was there alone.Both verses use a form of βαίνω (baínō) for going up into a mountain. Here, the same movement-root first carries Jesus away from one place and then upward; in Matthew 14:23, ascent opens into solitude.
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