What Does Matthew 22:9 Mean?
Go therefore to the crossroads, and call to the wedding as many as you find.
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
Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.THE KEY
The feast’s invitation reaches the crossroads and is addressed to whoever the messengers find there.
THE MEANING
The invitation to the wedding comes to you on the road, wherever your path meets another. The summons travels beyond its first circle and reaches people encountered along the way.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Only those already inside the expected circle can be invited.
THE ROOT
καλέσατε
kalesate
GROWS FROM
καλε-/κλη- (from καλέω, kaleō)
to call, summon, invite
English “bid” can sound like an instruction to attend, but καλέω means to call or invite. Its word family includes κλῆσις (klēsis, “calling”) and ἐκκλησία (ekklesia, “assembly”): the call goes outward, and people gather in response.
ALSO GROWS
klēsis: calling, invitation
κλῆσις
This noun shares the call-family with the invitation sent out in the verse.
ekklesia: assembly, gathered meeting
ἐκκλησία
The same call-family connects an invitation with the gathering it can form.
keklēmenoi: those who have been called or invited
κεκλημένοι
This form of the same verb describes the guests at the marriage supper in Revelation 19:9.
διεξόδους
diexodous
GROWS FROM
ὁδός
hodos
way, road; in διέξοδος (diexodos), a thoroughfare or road outlet
“crossroads” in this verse is diexodous. The Greek word points to thoroughfares or road outlets, places where travel passes through and paths open outward. The summons is sent into public movement, where people are encountered along the way.
ALSO GROWS
hodos: way, road
ὁδός
This is the road-word preserved in the Greek compound translated “highways.”
exodos: way out, departure
ἔξοδος
This compound also carries hodos, making the passage or outlet sense of the verse’s road-word audible.
THE PATTERN
The invitation to the feast extends beyond its first circle and gathers people from wherever they are found.
And in this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wines kept on their lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines kept on their lees, well strained.And the lord said to the servant, Go out to the roads and the hedges, and press them to come in, so that my house may be filled.And he says to me, Write, Flourishing are those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And he says to me, These are the true words of God.THE THREAD
And he says to me, Write, Flourishing are those who are called to the wedding supper of the Lamb. And he says to me, These are the true words of God.Matthew uses καλέω (kaleō, “call, invite”) for the servants’ “bid”; Revelation describes the guests as κεκλημένοι (keklēmenoi, “called, invited”), a form of the same verb. The shared root carries the roadside summons all the way to the marriage supper.
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