What Does Matthew 22:23 Mean?

That same day the Sadducees came to him, the ones who say there is no rising, and asked him,

Matthew 22:23 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,

THE KEY

The Greek word translated “resurrection” pictures the dead standing up, so the denial is that they can stand again.

THE MEANING

The claim that the dead do not rise comes face to face with Jesus as a question. The verse holds open the tension between a conclusion treated as settled and a question still brought into encounter.

THE ROOT

ἀνάστασις

anastasis

GROWS FROM

⁨στα-⁩/⁨στη-⁩ (sta-/stē-)

Standing; being set upright or placed.

“rising” in this verse is anastasis. The word carries the image of standing up, not merely an abstract idea about what happens after death. The denial in this verse reaches down to that image: can the dead stand again?

ALSO GROWS

anistēmi: to rise or stand up

ἀνίστημι

This verb makes the standing movement plain: resurrection is pictured as rising to one’s feet.

stasis: standing or position

στάσις

This related form exposes the standing held inside the word translated “resurrection.”

THE PATTERN

Resurrection is pictured as the dead awakening and rising into life.

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground shall awake, some to the life of the ages, and some to exposure and contempt for the ages.

Daniel 12:2 · SDVThe dead are pictured as sleepers who awake, making resurrection a rising from death.

Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.

John 11:25 · SDVJesus names resurrection as the life that raises the dead.

But if the Anointed One is heralded as awakened from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no rising of the dead?

1 Corinthians 15:12 · SDVThe verse puts the denial of resurrection beside the claim that Christ rose from the dead.

THE THREAD

Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.

John 11:25 · SDV

Both verses use ⁨ἀνάστασις⁩ (anastasis), meaning “resurrection” or “rising up.” Here the word is denied; in John, Jesus says, “I am” that rising life.

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