What Does Matthew 22:7 Mean?
But when the king heard of it, he burned with anger, and he sent out his armies, and made those murderers perish, and burned their city.
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
But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.THE KEY
The verb rendered “destroyed” also means “perish” or “be lost,” so Matthew names the killing with the same word family that can describe loss.
THE MEANING
The verse makes the cost of power visible: the king’s anger mobilizes armies, destroys the murderers, and burns a city. The violence reaches beyond its named targets into the place they inhabit.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a ruler’s anger is only an inner feeling collapses here: it becomes a military order, deaths, and a city burned.
THE ROOT
ἀπώλεσεν
apōlesen
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To perish or be lost; in the active voice, to destroy or cause to perish.
“made those murderers perish” in this verse is apōlesen. The active verb ἀπώλεσεν (apōlesen, “destroyed”) is a form of ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi, “perish, be lost; actively, destroy”). The same word family can name what is lost; here it names the king’s killing of the murderers and does not soften that act.
ALSO GROWS
apollymi: To perish, be lost; actively, to destroy or cause to perish.
ἀπόλλυμι
Matthew 22:7 uses its active form: the king causes the murderers to perish.
apolōlos: Lost, perished.
ἀπολωλός
Luke 19:10 uses this form for what is “lost,” showing the loss sense carried by this word family.
ἀπέστειλεν
apesteilen
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
apostellō
To send out, send away, or dispatch.
The word for “sent forth” is ἀποστέλλω (apostellō, “send out, dispatch”): the king’s anger becomes an ordered deployment of armed force. Its word family includes ἀπόστολος (apostolos, “envoy, one sent”), while here the king sends armies whose action ends in killing and fire.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: An envoy; one who is sent.
ἀπόστολος
This noun names a person who is sent; the verse shows the king dispatching his armies.
apostolē: A sending, mission, or commission.
ἀποστολή
This noun names the act of sending; here the dispatch is the step by which anger becomes armed action.
THE PATTERN
Judgment is shown through actions whose destruction reaches from people to the places they inhabit.
And he burned the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house he burned with fire.Therefore her blows shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and hunger; and she shall be burned down with fire, for strong is the LORD God who judges her.THE THREAD
So it is not the will of your Father in the heavens that one of these little ones should lose the way.The verb translated “destroyed” in Matthew 22:7 is the same Greek verb translated “should perish” here. That shared word places the king’s lethal act beside the Father’s stated unwillingness that a little one perish, leaving a sharp tension within Matthew’s own language.
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