What Does Matthew 15:5 Mean?
But you say, Whoever says to his father or mother, It is a gift, whatever help you might have from me.
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 ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;THE KEY
A sacred label cannot erase the real benefit your father or mother could receive from you.
THE MEANING
You can call something a gift while it remains help your father or mother could receive from you. The verse exposes how a sacred-sounding name can cover the choice to withhold that benefit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that calling available help a gift automatically means it no longer counts as help withheld from a parent.
THE ROOT
ὠφεληθῇς
ōphelēthēs
GROWS FROM
ὠφελ-
ōphel-
to help or benefit
“help” in this verse is ōphelēthēs. The sentence names a real benefit the parent could receive from the speaker. That benefit remains audible beneath the label “gift,” so the label cannot make the parent’s gain disappear.
ALSO GROWS
ōpheleia: benefit, profit
ὠφέλεια
This noun makes clear that the word concerns actual good someone receives, not just money or abstract advantage.
ōphelimos: useful, beneficial
ὠφέλιμος
This branch keeps the focus on the usefulness of what the speaker could provide.
δῶρον
dōron
GROWS FROM
δωρ-
dōr-
a gift, something given
“gift” in this verse is dōron. The word names something given, but the verse places that name over a resource that could benefit a parent. The tension is between the spoken designation and the concrete good the parent could receive.
ALSO GROWS
dōrea: gift, grant
δωρεά
This related word keeps the focus on a bestowed benefit, making the gift’s real value visible beneath its designation.
dōreomai: to grant, bestow
δωρέομαι
This related verb shows the act of giving behind the noun: what is called a gift still concerns who receives what is bestowed.
THE PATTERN
A religious claim is exposed by whether it fulfills concrete obligations of honor and care.
Give weight to your father and your mother, that your days may lengthen upon the ground which the LORD your God gives you.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.Clean and unstained service before God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widowed in their being pressed, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.THE THREAD
But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, Corban, whatever help from me you might have had, he is free.Mark preserves the word “gift” and names the claimed result: the speaker is declared “free.” The shared word δῶρον (dōron, “gift”) makes the maneuver visible: what could benefit a parent is relabeled, and that label is used to claim release from the obligation.
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