What Does Matthew 16:5 Mean?
And when his disciples came to the other side, they had let the taking of bread slip out of sight.
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 when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.THE KEY
The Greek word for “forgotten” belongs to a family about what escapes notice, turning the missing bread toward a question of what has slipped out of sight.
THE MEANING
When something necessary is missing, it can fill your attention until the larger meaning of the moment slips from view. The bread is genuinely absent, yet it may not be all that has gone unnoticed.
THE ROOT
ἐπελάθοντο
epelathonto
GROWS FROM
λανθαν- / ληθ- (lanthan- / lēth-)
To escape notice, remain hidden, or slip from awareness.
“let slip out of sight” in this verse is epelathonto. The verb belongs to a word family that connects forgetting with what has escaped notice. The bread is truly missing, while the wording also opens attention to what else can go unnoticed.
ALSO GROWS
lanthanō: Escape notice; remain hidden.
λανθάνω
This related verb makes forgetting sound like something slipping from awareness.
lēthē: Forgetfulness; oblivion.
λήθη
This noun shares the related stem and makes the link between forgetting and what is hidden explicit.
THE PATTERN
Fixation on physical provision can obscure the meaning carried by what is given.
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.Jesus answered them and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you perceived the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.THE THREAD
Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins, and not one of them slips from God's sight?Matthew uses the Greek verb for the disciples forgetting bread; Luke uses the same verb to say that no sparrow is forgotten before God. The shared word connects what slips from human awareness with what remains within God’s notice.
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