What Does Matthew 15:3 Mean?
But he answered and said to them, Why do you also step across the commandment of God through your handing-down?
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
But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?THE KEY
A handed-down practice can become the very means by which you step across God’s command.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the moment a handed-down practice becomes the reason you step away from what God commands. The issue is not simply that a tradition exists; it is that it functions as the path by which the command is crossed. Jesus’ question makes that contradiction visible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A religious practice does not become God’s command merely because it has been handed down and defended.
THE ROOT
παραβαίνετε
parabainete
GROWS FROM
βαίνω
bainō
to go or step
The compound verb pictures a step across or aside, giving “transgress” a sense of movement away from the command. Because Jesus says this happens by means of their tradition, the practice becomes the route of that step.
ALSO GROWS
bainō: to go or step
βαίνω
The verb beneath the compound makes the action a movement, not just an abstract mistake.
parabasis: transgression; a stepping across
παράβασις
This related noun makes the crossing image explicit and helps reveal what “transgress” carries here.
παράδοσις
paradosis
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
to give
“handing-down” in this verse is paradosis. The word carries the sense of something handed over and passed along; “tradition” includes an act of transmission, not only age or custom. Here, what is handed down becomes the means of stepping across God’s command.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: to hand over or deliver
παραδίδωμι
This related verb shows the transmission contained in the word for tradition.
dosis: a giving
δόσις
This related noun keeps the root’s basic sense of giving in view: tradition is something given onward.
THE PATTERN
Humanly preserved religious practices can displace the command they claim to honor.
And the Lord says, Because this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips give me weight, but their heart has gone far from me, and their awe of me is a command of men, trained.And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.Making the word of God void through your handing down, which you have handed down. And many things like these you do.THE THREAD
Watch lest anyone lead you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the handing down of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to the Anointed One.Colossians uses the same Greek noun, παράδοσις (paradosis, “tradition” or “handing down”), for a human framework that can take a person captive. Matthew shows that same handed-down thing becoming the means of stepping across God’s command, widening the connection from a particular practice to an entire way of thought.
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