What Does Matthew 21:37 Mean?
But last of all he sent his son to them, saying, They will turn toward my son.
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 last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.THE KEY
The final sending changes the claim from a delegated message to a personal presence: the owner sends his son.
THE MEANING
This verse meets you where repeated messages give way to a personal presence. The son carries the sender’s claim, and the expectation is that this presence will be met with reverence. That expectation is vulnerable: the verse names hope, not guarantee.
THE ROOT
ἐντραπήσονται
entrapēsontai
GROWS FROM
τρέπω
trepō
turn, turn about
“turn toward” in this verse is entrapēsontai. The verb translated “reverence” can also mean to feel shame or respect. Greek holds recognition and exposure together: to meet the son with regard is also to recognize what his presence reveals.
ALSO GROWS
entropē: shame; respect
ἐντροπή
The same word family joins inward exposure with the regard the owner expects for his son.
tropē: a turn or change
τροπή
Its sense of turning shows the movement carried in the root beneath the expected response.
ἀπέστειλεν
apesteilen
GROWS FROM
στέλλω
stellō
equip or dispatch; send
The Greek word for sending belongs to the same family as the word for a sent messenger. Here the one dispatched is the owner’s son, so the sending carries a personal claim into the vineyard.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: a sent one, messenger
ἀπόστολος
It makes visible the shared idea of a person carrying another’s sending.
apostolē: sending, commission
ἀποστολή
It names the act of sending that places the son before the tenants.
THE PATTERN
A sender’s claim arrives through those sent, and the response to them reveals whether that claim is received or rejected.
And the LORD God of their fathers sent to them by the hand of his messengers, rising early and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the burning of the LORD's anger rose against his people, until there was no healing.The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.He came to his own, and his own did not take him in.THE THREAD
For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be delivered through him.John uses the same Greek sending verb for God sending his Son. Here the purpose of that sending is deliverance, opening the vineyard’s expectation of reverence onto the wider purpose carried by the Son.
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