What Does Matthew 21:2 Mean?
Go into the village opposite you, and straightway you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.
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
Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me.THE KEY
The colt’s destination is named while it is still tied: release is its first movement toward arrival.
THE MEANING
Both animals are found bound, yet the verse holds their restraint together with their next movement: they are loosed and brought to Jesus. Their present binding does not erase their availability; release opens the way forward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being bound means you are unusable until you have freed yourself.
THE ROOT
λύσατε
lysate
GROWS FROM
λύω (lyō; Greek stem λυ-)
To loosen, untie, or release.
“untie” in this verse is lysate. The command names an actual unbinding that makes movement possible. The same word family includes λύτρον, a ransom or release-price, linking loosening with the means of release.
ALSO GROWS
apolyō: To release or dismiss.
ἀπολύω
This related verb carries loosening into the act of letting someone go.
lytron: Ransom; a price of release.
λύτρον
The word extends release from the untying itself to what secures freedom.
δεδεμένον
dedemenon
GROWS FROM
δέω (deō; Greek stem δε-)
To bind or tie.
“tied” in this verse is dedemenon. The form describes the colt as already bound when it is found. Its word family also names bonds and prisoners, making the restraint concrete; the following command answers that condition with release.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: A bond or chain.
δεσμός
It names the binding that holds someone or something in place.
desmōtēs: A prisoner or captive.
δεσμώτης
It shows how binding can describe the condition of one held fast.
THE PATTERN
Release is the threshold between restraint and movement into what comes next.
Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?He brings them out of darkness and the valley of deepest darkness, and tears their bonds apart.Saying, "Go into the village opposite you, where, as you enter, you will find a colt bound, on which no one has ever sat. Loose him and bring him here."THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.The command translated “Loose” is the same Greek verb, λύω (lyō), used here for the colt. In both verses, release answers a real binding and opens the way for movement.
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