What Does Matthew 26:2 Mean?
You know that after two days is the feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is handed over to be crucified.
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
Ye know that after two days is the feast of the passover, and the Son of man is betrayed to be crucified.THE KEY
At Passover, the Son of Man is handed over, the feast of passing over sits beside the act of transfer.
THE MEANING
Two days remain before Passover, and the Son of Man is being handed over to crucifixion. The verse holds the feast of passing over beside a person’s transfer into the hands of those who crucify him.
THE ROOT
παραδίδοται
paradí
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
to give, grant, or put into another’s possession
“handed over” in this verse is paradí. The Greek verb also names the concrete act of handing someone over. Its root is the ordinary verb for giving, so the violence here is carried in the language of transfer: a person is placed into other hands.
ALSO GROWS
paradídōmi: to hand over, deliver
παραδίδωμι
This is the compound verb behind παραδίδοται; it makes the transfer into another’s hands explicit alongside the betrayal.
metadídōmi: to share, impart
μεταδίδωμι
This compound carries the same δίδωμι (didōmi, “give”) root into sharing: the root describes transfer, while the surrounding word gives it direction.
apodídōmi: to give back, repay
ἀποδίδωμι
This compound uses the same giving root for return, showing how the root’s meaning of transfer takes its shape from the word around it.
THE PATTERN
Passover’s deliverance is marked by a blood-covered threshold, and Christ is named as the Passover who is sacrificed.
And the blood will be a mark for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will leap over you, and the blow will not be upon you to ruin you when I strike down the land of Egypt.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.THE THREAD
He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also favor us with all things along with him?Romans uses the same Greek verb, παραδίδωμι (paradídōmi, “hand over”), for the Son being delivered up. It opens Matthew’s act of transfer into a wider pattern where the handover carries both violence and costly giving.
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