What Does Matthew 18:8 Mean?
But if your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter into the life bent or limping than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into the fire of the ages.
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
Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.THE KEY
The verse calls what makes you stumble a trap, then measures wholeness by life rather than by an intact body.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you with a severe bodily image: if your hand or foot makes you stumble, it says to cut it off and cast it from you. It weighs entering life maimed above carrying both hands and feet into the fire of the ages.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that keeping every part intact guarantees wholeness: in this verse, the intact body can still be carried into fire.
THE ROOT
σκανδαλίζει
skandalízei
GROWS FROM
σκάνδαλον
skándalon
A trap or stumbling-block; something that catches the step.
“causes you to stumble” in this verse is skandalízei. English “offend” can sound like an insult, while this word-family carries the image of a trap catching the step. The verse’s next command answers that danger with the image of severance.
ALSO GROWS
skándalon: Trap, stumbling-block
σκάνδαλον
The noun names the image beneath “offend”: something that catches the step.
skandalízō: Cause to stumble, ensnare
σκανδαλίζω
This is the verb in Matthew, describing the act of being tripped or ensnared.
ἔκκοψον
ékkopson
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
kop-
To strike, hew, or cut; here, to cut out.
“cut them off” in this verse is ékkopson. The command names severing: what catches the step is pictured as cut away, even at the cost of the limb. Beside the trap-word, the sequence makes the danger and its remedy bodily and stark.
ALSO GROWS
kóptō: Strike, cut, hew
κόπτω
This is the base verb behind the command’s cutting image.
ekkóptō: Cut out or cut off
ἐκκόπτω
This related form makes the removal explicit in the verse’s image.
αἰώνιον
aiṓnion
GROWS FROM
αἰών-
aiṓn-
Age; a span or order of time.
“of the ages” in this verse is aiṓnion. The adjective translated “everlasting” is formed from αἰών (aiṓn, “age”), keeping the ages-language present in the phrase. The verse sets that age-framed fire opposite entry into life.
ALSO GROWS
aiṓn: Age, an age
αἰών
This is the word-family’s basic noun and the seed of the adjective used here.
aiṓnios: Of an age or ages; age-related
αἰώνιος
This adjective is the form underlying “everlasting” in the verse.
THE PATTERN
When a path or attachment carries someone toward ruin, these texts picture life as requiring decisive departure from it.
And it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, Escape for your living soul. Do not look behind you, and do not stand still anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away.Let go of it, and leave it; do not cross over it. Turn aside from it, and pass on.Therefore, since we also have so great a cloud of witnesses lying around us, setting down every weight and falling short that so easily wraps around us, let us run the race lying before us, remaining under it.THE THREAD
And a stone to strike against, and a rock that springs the trap, to those who strike against the word and will not yield, and to this they were also set.The noun translated “offence” is σκάνδαλον (skándalon, “trap or stumbling-block”), from the same Greek word-family as Matthew’s verb “offend.” Peter’s wording makes Matthew’s image clearer: what ensnares is something that catches the step, and the command to remove its cause matches the severity of the danger.
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