What Does Matthew 26:42 Mean?
He went away again a second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup cannot pass by me unless I drink it, your will be done.
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
He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.THE KEY
The cup’s passing is bound to Jesus’ drinking it: what he asks to be removed is also what he receives.
THE MEANING
The verse holds the wish for the cup to pass alongside the reality that it remains before Jesus unless he drinks it. His words do not make the cup painless; the Father’s will comes to be within the act of receiving what remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a sincere prayer must end with the painful thing disappearing: Jesus voices the request for its removal and still speaks his consent to the Father’s will.
THE ROOT
πίω
piō
GROWS FROM
πιν-
pin-
drink
“drink” in this verse is piō. The cup and the act of drinking belong to the same Greek word family: the cup is a drinking vessel, and Jesus names drinking it as the condition bound to its passing. English makes the object and the act look separate; the root keeps them joined.
ALSO GROWS
potērion: cup, drinking vessel
ποτήριον
The cup is named for the act it holds: drinking.
posis: drinking, a drink
πόσις
This related noun makes the shared root between the cup and the act of drinking visible.
γενηθήτω
genēthētō
GROWS FROM
γεν- (gen-), from γίνομαι (ginomai)
become, come to be, happen
The words translated “thy will be done” carry the sense “let it come to be.” The Father’s will is spoken of as taking form in what is happening, even while Jesus’ plea for the cup to pass remains fully present.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: origin, birth, coming into being
γένεσις
It shows the same family’s sense of something coming to be.
genea: generation, a people born into a line
γενεά
It carries the root’s sense of coming into being across a generation.
THE PATTERN
A cup names a portion received by drinking, and the act of drinking brings the encounter with that portion to completion.
I lift the cup of deliverances, and in the nature of the LORD I call.But Jesus answered and said, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup I will drink, and to be immersed in the immersion I am immersed in? They said to him, We are able.Then Jesus said to Peter, Throw your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?THE THREAD
Then Jesus said to Peter, Throw your sword into its sheath. Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?John 18:11 uses the same cup word, ποτήριον (potērion, “cup”), and the same verb, πίω (piō, “drink”), as this prayer. There Jesus names the cup as given by the Father, making the prayer’s “thy will be done” concrete in the cup he drinks.
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