What Does Matthew 2:11 Mean?
And when they had entered the house, they perceived the young child with Mary his mother, and fell to the ground and bowed down before him. And when they had opened their treasures, they brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
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 they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.THE KEY
The visitors’ homage is already embodied before a single treasure is opened.
THE MEANING
You meet the child before you know what to offer: the visitors’ bodies are already bowed while their treasures remain closed. The passage holds posture and possession in one encounter; what they present comes after the bow.
THE ROOT
προσκυνέω
proskyneō
GROWS FROM
προσκυν- (the verbal stem of προσκυνέω)
Bow down, prostrate oneself, pay homage.
“bowed down before him” in this verse is proskyneō. The KJV’s “worshipped” carries a visible posture here: the visitors fall down and bow before opening their treasures. The Greek word family also names the act of bowing and the one who bows, joining the body’s gesture to homage.
ALSO GROWS
proskynēsis: Bowing, an act of homage.
προσκύνησις
The noun keeps homage attached to the physical act visible in the visitors’ bowed bodies.
proskynētēs: One who bows or pays homage; a worshipper.
προσκυνητής
This word names the person by the posture and homage expressed in the scene.
THE PATTERN
Homage becomes visible through the body’s bow.
And the man bent his head, and bowed down to the LORD.Enter, let us bow down and kneel before the face of the LORD who makes us.And the four living creatures say, Amen. And the twenty-four older ones fall down and bow down to the one who lives into the ages of the ages.THE THREAD
And again, when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited earth, he says, and let all the messengers of God bow down to him.Hebrews uses προσκυνέω (proskyneō), meaning “bow down” or pay homage, the same verb rendered “worshipped” here. The word carries the visitors’ bowed posture into a wider scene of homage, joining earthly travelers and heavenly messengers through one gesture.
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