What Does Matthew 15:6 Mean?
And he shall not honor his father or mother. Thus you have emptied 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
And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.THE KEY
A gift labeled as belonging to God can become an exemption that cancels the care owed to one’s parents.
THE MEANING
Where a resource is named as dedicated to God, a parent can still be left without the care that honor entails. This verse exposes the contradiction: a handed-down rule that frees the giver from that care renders God’s command powerless in lived practice.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Calling what I withhold a gift to God makes withholding care from my parents faithful.
THE ROOT
τιμάω
timaō
GROWS FROM
τιμή
timē
Value, worth, or price; τιμάω (timaō) means to honor by assigning value.
“honour” in this verse is timaō. The verb carries the sense of assigning value, not merely using respectful language. Here that value has a material edge: a tradition that leaves parents without support hollows out the honor it permits the giver to claim.
ALSO GROWS
timē: Value, worth, price, or honor.
τιμή
This noun names what is assigned through honor, making practical care one way a parent’s value is recognized.
timios: Precious, valued, or honored.
τίμιος
What is precious is treated as carrying worth, echoing the practical weight of honoring a parent.
atimazō: Dishonor or treat as having no worth.
ἀτιμάζω
The opposite of honor is not simply silence; it is treating someone as though their value can be set aside.
ἠκυρώσατε
ēkyrōsate
GROWS FROM
κυρόω
kyrōō
To confirm or ratify; with negation, ἀκυρόω (akyroō) means to invalidate or nullify.
“emptied” in this verse is ēkyrōsate. The verse describes practical nullification: the command remains in speech, while the tradition removes its force in this case. What is made void is not the wording of the command but its claim on the giver’s actions.
ALSO GROWS
kyrōō: Confirm, ratify, or give force.
κυρόω
This is the affirmative sense beneath the verb: to make something stand as valid.
akyroō: Invalidate, annul, or make void.
ἀκυρόω
This is the verb’s force in the verse: the tradition makes the command ineffective in practice.
παράδοσις
paradosis
GROWS FROM
παραδίδωμι
paradidōmi
To hand over or deliver; παράδοσις (paradosis) is what is handed down.
“handing-down” in this verse is paradosis. Tradition is something passed along, and passing something along does not by itself make it life-giving or destructive. Here the handed-down rule functions as an exemption that displaces the command it claims to serve.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: Hand over, deliver, or pass along.
παραδίδωμι
This verb names the act from which the idea of something handed down grows.
didōmi: Give or grant.
δίδωμι
The underlying act of giving shows tradition as transmission: what is received can be carried forward, including a rule that nullifies care.
THE PATTERN
A religious exemption can leave God’s command intact in words while nullifying it in the care parents receive.
Give weight to your father and your mother, that your days may lengthen upon the ground which the LORD your God gives you.And you no longer let him go to do anything for his father or his mother.But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show devotion in their own house, and to give back to those who bore them; for this is good, and it is received before God.THE THREAD
Give weight to your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise.Ephesians 6:2 uses the same Greek verb τιμάω (timaō), meaning to honor or assign value, and directly names it as a commandment. That makes Matthew’s clash concrete: the tradition’s exemption removes the very value-bearing care the command names.
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