What Does Matthew 17:15 Mean?
Lord, show faithful love to my son, for he is moonstruck and suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.
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
Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.THE KEY
The Greek keeps the moon inside “lunatick,” while the verse shows the boy’s torment through repeated falls into fire and water.
THE MEANING
You hear a parent ask for mercy because his son is tormented and repeatedly falls into fire and water. The verse holds the son’s suffering and the parent’s plea together: the danger is visible, recurring, and severe. The word behind “lunatick” carries the image of the moon, while the rest of the sentence names the harm he lives through.
THE ROOT
σεληνιάζεται
selēniazetai
GROWS FROM
σελήνη
selēnē
Moon; the word-family’s underlying image.
“moonstruck” in this verse is selēniazetai. The Greek verb is built from the word for moon, so the lunar image remains inside “lunatick.” The sentence does not explain the cause; it anchors that label in torment and repeated falls into fire and water.
ALSO GROWS
selēniazomai: To be moon-struck; to be described as lunatic.
σεληνιάζομαι
This verb family carries the moon-derived image into the condition named in the verse.
selēniakos: Lunar; related to the moon.
σεληνιακός
This adjective preserves the same moon-root in a related description.
βασανίζεται
basanizetai
GROWS FROM
βάσανος
básanos
Torment, torture.
The Greek verb carries the force of being tormented, giving “sore vexed” a sharper edge than general distress. The verse then shows that torment through what repeatedly happens to the boy’s body.
ALSO GROWS
basanismós: Torment; torture.
βασανισμός
This noun from the same word-family names the suffering itself, making the force of the verb plain.
basanistḗs: Torturer; one who inflicts torment.
βασανιστής
This related word shows how sharply the family expresses torment, though the verse does not identify an agent.
THE PATTERN
A plea for mercy names suffering and reaches toward help while it is still happening.
Bend toward me, O LORD, for I am in a narrow place; my eye wastes away in grief, my living soul and my belly.And as Jesus passed on from there, two blind men followed him, crying out and saying, Show us faithful love, Son of David.Let us therefore draw near, with open speech, to the throne of favor, that we may receive compassion, and find favor to help in the right moment.THE THREAD
And often it has thrown him into the fire and into the waters, to make him perish. But if you are able to do anything, be moved in your depths for us, and help us.Mark’s parallel account keeps the same two hazards, fire and water, and says the force throws him toward them to destroy him. That makes the father’s words in Matthew a precise report of repeated danger, not a vague account of distress.
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