What Does Matthew 15:38 Mean?
And those who ate were four thousand men, apart from women and children.
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 they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.THE KEY
The four thousand are not the whole crowd: “beside” leaves women and children outside the number but inside the scene.
THE MEANING
Four thousand names the men, while women and children remain present beyond that count. The verse distinguishes the number recorded from the people gathered, so the figure is exact without being the full total.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A stated number does not always name everyone present; this verse undoes the assumption that four thousand is the whole crowd.
THE ROOT
χωρίς
chōris
GROWS FROM
χωρ
chōr
Apartness; being separate from or without.
The Greek word carries the sense “apart from,” marking the four thousand as a count of the men alone. It sets a boundary around the number, not around who is present at the meal.
ALSO GROWS
chōrizō: Separate, put apart.
χωρίζω
This verb makes the χωρ- family’s sense of separation explicit; here, the count is distinguished from the women and children.
chōrismos: Separation.
χωρισμός
The related noun names the state of being apart, echoing the boundary this verse draws around whom the tally includes.
THE PATTERN
A named tally can be accurate while counting only a specified part of the people present.
And the children of Israel pulled up from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides the little ones.And those who ate were about five thousand men, apart from the women and children.But many who heard the word trusted, and the number of the men was about five thousand.THE THREAD
I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.The same Greek word, χωρίς (chōris, “apart from” or “without”), appears in both verses. In Matthew it limits whom the number counts; in John it names dependence, showing how the word marks a boundary whose meaning comes from the relation being described.
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