What Does Matthew 22:13 Mean?
Then the king said to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and throw him out into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
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
Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.THE KEY
Here exclusion is enacted twice: first by binding the body, then by casting it outside.
THE MEANING
This verse places the reader in a scene where authority binds a person and removes him from the feast into darkness. Weeping and teeth grinding name the anguish of that exclusion; the passage holds the king’s force and the person’s suffering together without softening either.
THE ROOT
δήσαντες
dēsantes
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
to bind or fasten
“Bind” in this verse is dēsantes. The Greek word family connects binding with both the bond and the bound person. The command makes the man physically fixed before he is expelled, so the exclusion is enacted on his body as well as at the boundary of the feast.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: a bond or fetter
δεσμός
The bond names what the command places on the man before he is taken away.
desmios: a bound person or prisoner
δέσμιος
This branch shows the change in the man’s condition: he is made captive before being cast out.
ἐξώτερον
exōteron
GROWS FROM
ἔξω
exō
outside
“Outer” in this verse is exōteron. The word marks a place beyond the gathered space. The darkness is not only an inner state in this scene: the man is cast outside, away from the feast.
ALSO GROWS
exōteros: farther out or outer
ἐξώτερος
This comparative form carries the verse’s sense of being placed beyond the boundary.
exōthen: from outside or outwardly
ἔξωθεν
This related form keeps the idea spatial, locating what comes from beyond the inside.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is shown as exclusion from a gathered place, with its anguish made visible in the body.
The wicked see it and are provoked; they grind their teeth and melt away; the craving of the wicked perishes.There will be weeping and grinding of teeth when you see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the governance of God, but you yourselves are thrown outside.Outside are the dogs, and the potion-makers, and the fornicators, and the bloodshedders, and the image-servers, and everyone who loves and makes a lie.THE THREAD
But the children of the governance will be thrown out into the outer darkness; there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.Matthew repeats the image of outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing when the boundary of the kingdom comes into view. The repeated wording connects this scene’s expulsion with a wider picture of anguish beyond the gathered place.
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