What Does Matthew 21:44 Mean?
And whoever falls upon this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will winnow him away.
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 whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.THE KEY
The same stone meets you in opposite directions, and either way the collision leaves you broken.
THE MEANING
You meet the stone in one of two ways: you fall against it and are broken, or it falls upon you and grinds you to powder. The verse holds both outcomes plainly, with the second impact leaving nothing intact.
THE ROOT
πίπτω
piptō
GROWS FROM
πτ- (pt-), the Greek verbal stem in πίπτω
to fall, drop, or tumble
“fall” in this verse is piptō. Matthew uses forms of the same verb first for the person falling against the stone and then for the stone falling upon the person. The direction reverses while the root stays the same; what changes is the consequence, from being broken to being ground into powder.
ALSO GROWS
ptōsis: a fall or collapse
πτῶσις
This noun can describe a collapse, carrying the movement of falling toward the failure it leaves behind.
ptōma: a fallen body; a corpse
πτῶμα
This branch shows how the word family can name what has fallen, giving the verse’s image of impact a stark bodily edge.
THE PATTERN
The same stone can serve as a cornerstone or become the point where people stumble.
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.And he shall be for a set-apart place; but for a stone of striking and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, for a trap and for a snare to those who settle in Jerusalem.And a stone to strike against, and a rock that springs the trap, to those who strike against the word and will not yield, and to this they were also set.THE THREAD
And he shall be for a set-apart place; but for a stone of striking and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, for a trap and for a snare to those who settle in Jerusalem.Isaiah names the same figure as both sanctuary and stumbling stone, so Matthew’s collision belongs to an image that holds shelter and danger together. Both passages leave the stone unchanged and show its force through the person who meets it.
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