What Does Matthew 21:4 Mean?
All this came to be, so that what was spoken through the prophet might be filled, saying,
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
All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,THE KEY
Fulfillment is where a spoken word fills out into lived reality.
THE MEANING
The verse holds speech and what happens together: what is spoken reaches its fullness in what is done. Its focus now falls on a word taking visible shape as events unfold.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that spoken words remain detached from what happens; here, the word reaches its full shape in action.
THE ROOT
πληρωθῇ
plērōthē
GROWS FROM
πληρόω (plēroō), stem πληρ- (plēr-)
to fill, make full, bring to fullness
“filled” in this verse is plērōthē. The word translated “fulfilled” also carries the image of filling something until it is full. What is spoken reaches its full measure in what is done, holding speech and event together as one movement.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: full, complete
πλήρης
This related word makes the shared image of fullness clearer: fulfillment is a word coming to its complete expression.
plērōma: fullness, that which fills
πλήρωμα
This branch names the state or measure of fullness that the spoken word reaches in the verse.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word reaches its fullness when it takes visible form in what happens.
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.And he began to say to them, Today this writing has been filled in your ears.THE THREAD
Do not think that I came to loosen the instruction or the prophets. I came not to loosen, but to fill.“Fulfilled” here and “fulfil” there translate forms of the same Greek verb, πληρόω (plēroō), meaning to fill or bring to fullness. The connection opens fulfillment as a word or teaching reaching its full expression, rather than remaining an uncompleted statement.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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