What Does Matthew 19:11 Mean?
But he said to them, Not all make room for this word, but only those to whom it is given.
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 he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.THE KEY
Jesus describes receiving this saying as making room for it, a capacity that is itself given.
THE MEANING
The saying about not marrying is not a path every person can receive; it finds room in those to whom this capacity is given. That difference is presented as a gift, not a measure of anyone’s worth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You are not deficient because you cannot receive every demanding saying as your own calling; this verse presents receptivity as a gift, not a universal capacity.
THE ROOT
χωροῦσιν
chōrousin
GROWS FROM
χωρέω
chōreō
To make room, contain, or have room for.
“make room for” in this verse is chōrousin. The word translated “receive” has a spatial sense: the saying has room in a person, or it does not. The phrase also says that this capacity for receiving is given.
ALSO GROWS
chōra: A region, land, or space.
χώρα
This branch makes the spatial sense visible: receiving the saying is pictured as having room for it.
chōrion: A place or parcel of land.
χωρίον
This word names a place that can be occupied; it echoes the verse’s picture of a saying finding room within someone.
THE PATTERN
A person’s capacity to receive is presented as something given, not a universal possession.
He answered and said to them, Because it has been given to you to know the closed things of the governance of the heavens, but to them it has not been given.And he said, This is why I said to you, that no one can come to me unless it is given to him from my Father.Now we have taken hold not of the breath of the world, but of the breath that is from God, so that we might know the things God has favored us with.THE THREAD
I know that you are Abraham's seed, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no room in you.“Hath no place” translates χωρεῖ (chōrei), the same verb family as “receive” here. The Greek lets both verses speak in the language of room: a word is received where it has space within.
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