What Does Matthew 24:3 Mean?
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, his disciples came to him apart, saying, Tell us, when will these things be, and what is the sign of your presence and of the completion of the age?
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 as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?THE KEY
In Greek, the “end of the world” is the completion of an age, while the “coming” also carries the sense of a presence arriving.
THE MEANING
The verse gives your question a shape: what sign makes a presence recognizable, and when does an age reach its completion? Here “coming” carries arrival and presence, while “world” renders a word for age. The timing remains open in this sentence; its focus is the presence and the age reaching completion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
“The end of the world” must mean the planet’s destruction. Here the Greek names an age’s completion; the phrase itself does not say that creation is destroyed.
THE ROOT
συντέλεια
synteleia
GROWS FROM
συντελέω
synteleō
Bring to completion; consummate.
“completion of the age” in this verse is synteleia. English “end” can sound like a bare stop, while συντέλεια carries the sense of completion or consummation. Paired with “age,” it pictures an age brought to completion, while leaving what follows unstated.
ALSO GROWS
synteleō: Complete; bring to completion.
συντελέω
This related verb makes the completion carried by “end” more visible.
telos: End, completion, goal or outcome.
τέλος
It shows how an end can be the point a process reaches, not only a stop.
αἰῶνος
aiōnos
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
A span of time, age or era.
Here the genitive αἰῶνος points to an age or era, so the completion is temporal. The word itself does not specify the planet’s destruction.
ALSO GROWS
aiōn: Age, era or span of time.
αἰών
This is the underlying noun rendered “world” in the phrase about the age’s completion.
aiōnios: Age-long; pertaining to an age.
αἰώνιος
This related adjective preserves the same age-language in another form.
παρουσία
parousia
GROWS FROM
πάρειμι
pareimi
Be present or at hand; the noun can refer to presence or arrival.
The KJV “coming” retains arrival, while παρουσία also carries the sense of presence. The sign concerns how the presence of the one addressed is recognized.
ALSO GROWS
pareimi: Be present; be at hand.
πάρειμι
This related verb gives the noun its sense of being present or arriving.
parōn: Present; being here.
παρών
This participle from the same word-family makes the sense of presence explicit.
THE PATTERN
Across Scripture, “end” language can describe an age reaching completion as a threshold within the unfolding story.
But you, Daniel, stop up the words, and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall multiply.The enemy who sowed them is the Slanderer; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are messengers.For then he would have had to suffer often since the laying down of the world, but now once, at the completion of the ages, he has been made visible to set falling short aside through his own sacrifice.THE THREAD
The enemy who sowed them is the Slanderer; the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are messengers.Matthew 13:39 repeats συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος (synteleia tou aiōnos, completion of the age), the same Greek phrase translated “the end of the world” here. In that verse, the image is a harvest, which opens this question of completion as a gathering and sorting.
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