What Does Matthew 23:7 Mean?
And the embraces in the marketplaces, and to be called by people, “Teacher, teacher.”
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 greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.THE KEY
The phrase “to be called” makes honor depend on the crowd: their public address is the identity being sought.
THE MEANING
You encounter the pull of recognition in the wish to be greeted in public and addressed with a title. The verse shows status taking shape in the voices around you: being noticed becomes being named.
THE ROOT
καλεῖσθαι
kaleisthai
GROWS FROM
καλ-
To call, summon, invite, or address by name.
“to be called” in this verse is kaleisthai. English “called” can sound like a neutral label, but καλέω also carries the sense of invitation or summons. Here the passive puts the crowd’s voice at the center: the sought identity arrives through what other people call them.
ALSO GROWS
klēsis: Calling, invitation
κλῆσις
It belongs to the καλε-/κλη- word family and retains the sense of a summons, making “called” more than a passive label.
ekklesia: Assembly
ἐκκλησία
Its formation joins ἐκ (“out”) with the καλέω (“call”) family, linking calling with gathering people into an assembly; here the sought title also shapes a public identity.
רַבִּי
rabbi
GROWS FROM
רַב
Great, much; as a title, master.
“Teacher” in this verse is rabbi. The Semitic title combines rab, “great” or “master,” with -i, “my”: “my master.” Repeating it in the marketplace turns a relation of deference into visible public status.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Great, much; master
רַב
This base supplies the title’s sense of greatness and authority.
rabban: Master, teacher; an honorific title
רַבָּן
It shares the r-b base and shows the root becoming a public designation of authority.
THE PATTERN
When recognition becomes the prize, public titles turn into measures of status.
It is not good to eat much honey, and to search out their weight is not weight.For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.We did not seek weight from humankind, not from you nor from others, though we could have been a weight upon you as sent ones of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
But do not be called teacher, for one is your teacher, the Anointed One, and you are all brothers.The next verse repeats the same Greek call-family in its warning against being called Rabbi, then sets that title beside one Master and a shared brotherhood. It opens verse 7’s marketplace scene as a question of what public naming does to relationships.
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