What Does Matthew 22:6 Mean?
And the rest seized his servants, and treated them with violence, and killed them.
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 the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.THE KEY
Because these are the king’s servants, seizing and humiliating them turns refusal of the invitation into an assault on the one who sent it.
THE MEANING
The remaining people do more than refuse the invitation: they seize the king’s servants, outrage them, and kill them. The reader sees that violence against a messenger also touches the one whose message and servants are being rejected.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that contempt toward the messenger leaves the sender untouched dissolves here: the servants are his, so the violence reaches beyond them.
THE ROOT
ὕβρισαν
hýbrisan
GROWS FROM
ὑβρ-
hybr-
To act with insolent outrage, treating another with humiliating abuse.
“entreated them spitefully” in this verse is hýbrisan. The Greek verb carries the sense of public outrage and abuse. The verse shows contempt taking physical form, not remaining a private feeling.
ALSO GROWS
hýbris: Insolence; outrage.
ὕβρις
This noun names the contemptuous force present in how the servants are treated.
hybristḗs: An insolent, injurious person; an abuser.
ὑβριστής
This word describes someone whose contempt becomes harmful conduct.
κρατήσαντες
kratḗsantes
GROWS FROM
κρατ-
krat-
Strength or power expressed through holding, seizing, or prevailing.
“seized” in this verse is kratḗsantes. The taking is a forceful seizure, and it leads directly into outrage and killing. The root family connects grasping with the use of power over another.
ALSO GROWS
kratéō: To hold fast; seize.
κρατέω
This verb is the source of the forceful action described here.
krátos: Strength; might; power.
κράτος
This related noun brings out the power exercised when the servants are seized.
οἱ λοιποί
hoi loipoí
GROWS FROM
λειπ-
leip-
To leave behind, be left over, or remain.
The Greek names them simply as the rest, the ones remaining. Remaining does not itself mean being receptive: this verse shows what this group does next.
ALSO GROWS
leípō: To leave; be left; remain.
λείπω
This verb carries the sense of being left over that appears in the group’s description.
loipón: The remaining part; henceforth; for the rest.
λοιπόν
This related form keeps the focus on what remains, without assigning the group a moral quality.
THE PATTERN
A rejected message can become an attack on the messengers who carry it.
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.Which of the prophets did your fathers not pursue? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Aligned One, of whom you have now become the handers over and the blood-spillers.O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!THE THREAD
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!The verb translated “killest” comes from ἀποκτείνω (apokteínō, “to kill”), the same Greek root as “slew” in this verse. Matthew 23:37 identifies those killed as prophets sent to Jerusalem, making explicit the messenger pattern held in the king’s servants.
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