What Does Matthew 24:10 Mean?
Then many are made to stumble, and they hand one another over, and they hate one another.
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 then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.THE KEY
What begins as a stumble can spread outward until people hand one another over and hatred becomes mutual.
THE MEANING
When trust fractures, the rupture can spread: people stumble, hand one another over, and turn against each other. The verse names a chain reaction in which hurt reaches beyond one person and becomes betrayal and mutual hatred.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that offense stays private or harmless: here, a stumble can spill into betrayal and hatred.
THE ROOT
σκανδαλισθήσονται
skandalisthēsontai
GROWS FROM
σκάνδαλ-
skandal-
A trap or stumbling block; something that catches the foot and brings a fall.
“are made to stumble” in this verse is skandalisthēsontai. The verb translated “offended” carries the image of being tripped or ensnared, beyond simply feeling insulted. The verse shows that this stumble can become the first link in a wider break between people.
ALSO GROWS
skándalon: A trap or obstacle that catches someone and causes a fall.
σκάνδαλον
It reveals the force behind “offended”: a person is caught or tripped, not merely displeased.
skandalízō: To cause someone to stumble or become ensnared.
σκανδαλίζω
This is the verb behind the verse’s “offended,” showing how the rupture begins with a stumble.
παραδώσουσιν
paradōsousin
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι (didōmi), with παρά (para)
δίδωμι means “give”; παρά adds the sense of handing over or delivering to another.
“hand one another over” in this verse is paradōsousin. The word translated “betray” pictures people handing one another over. That makes the breach active: each person becomes someone else’s transfer into another’s hands.
ALSO GROWS
dídōmi: To give or grant.
δίδωμι
This is the verb at the center of “hand over”; betrayal here takes the form of giving another person into someone else’s power.
parádosis: Something delivered or passed on.
παράδοσις
The related compound also carries the sense of handing something along, illuminating the transfer contained in “betray.”
THE PATTERN
When trust breaks, hostility can reach into the closest bonds and turn them into channels of betrayal.
Even the man of my wholeness, upon whom I leaned my weight, eats my bread and lifts his heel against me.For the son sets the father at nothing, the daughter rises against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.And you will be handed over by parents, and by brothers, and by kin, and by friends, and they will bring some of you to death.THE THREAD
Then Jesus said to them, All of you will be made to stumble because of me this night; for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered apart.“Offended” translates the same Greek verb, σκανδαλίζω (skandalízō), meaning “cause to stumble” or “ensnare.” Here the stumble is linked with scattering, opening Matthew 24:10’s warning as a rupture that can break the bonds holding people together.
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