What Does Matthew 19:26 Mean?
But Jesus looked straight at them and said to them, With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
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 Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.THE KEY
The impossible and the possible share one root: the limit changes with whose capacity is in view.
THE MEANING
When human capacity reaches its limit, that limit does not define what God can do. In the surrounding question of who can be delivered, what no person can secure by their own means remains possible with God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If no human way can accomplish this, then it cannot happen at all. The verse places that boundary on human ability, not on God’s.
THE ROOT
δυνατά
dynata
GROWS FROM
δύνα-
dyna-
To be able; to have power or capacity.
“possible” in this verse is dynata. The verse names impossibility and possibility with forms from the same root of ability. What changes is the phrase around them: “with men” and “with God.” English can make them sound like separate conditions, while the Greek keeps attention on whose capacity is in view.
ALSO GROWS
adynatos: Unable, powerless; impossible.
ἀδύνατος
The negative form marks the limit of ability that applies “with men” in this verse.
dynamis: Power, capacity, ability.
δύναμις
This branch names the capacity beneath what is possible, tying possibility to the power to act.
dynatos: Able, powerful; possible.
δυνατός
This form makes the shared root visible in the verse’s claim that all things are possible with God.
THE PATTERN
Human inability does not set the limit of what God can bring about.
Is any word too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will turn back to you, at this season of life, and Sarah will have a son.I know that you can do all things, and that no plan can be walled off from you.For with God nothing will be impossible.THE THREAD
For with God nothing will be impossible.Luke states the same claim from the other direction: Matthew says all things are possible with God; Luke says nothing is impossible with God. Both use the same Greek family of ability, keeping the focus on capacity rather than on two unrelated kinds of outcome.
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