What Does Matthew 26:60 Mean?
But they found none, though many false witnesses came near. At last two false witnesses came near.
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
But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none. At the last came two false witnesses,THE KEY
False accusation can gather a crowd and still leave the truth unfound; the hinge is whether a voice bears witness or only wears its shape.
THE MEANING
A crowd can press accusations around you without making its claim true. Many false witnesses come, yet the search still finds none; at the last, two step forward. The verse holds their arrival and the failure to find a charge together, so presence alone does not become proof.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that an accusation becomes true once enough voices repeat it.
THE ROOT
ψευδομαρτύρων
pseudomartyrōn
GROWS FROM
ψευδ- (pseud-, false) + μαρτυρ- (martyr-, witness/testify)
A false witness: falsehood presented in the form of testimony.
“false witnesses” in this verse is pseudomartyrōn. The compound keeps “witness” intact while marking the testimony as false: the accusation borrows a witness’s form without carrying its truth. This same witness-family also names testimony and a witness who bears costly testimony, so the verse turns on the truth of the speech, not merely the arrival of witnesses.
ALSO GROWS
martyreō: to testify or bear witness
μαρτυρέω
It shows that witnessing is an act of giving testimony; the verse’s false witnesses use that act’s form deceptively.
martyria: testimony or witness
μαρτυρία
It names the testimony itself, making clear that a crowd of witnesses and sound testimony are not the same thing.
THE PATTERN
An accusation gains no truth merely because multiple witnesses repeat it.
And the judges shall search well; and, behold, if the witness is a witness of lies, and has answered a lie against his brother;A steady witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.And they stood up false witnesses, who said, This man does not stop speaking words against this set-apart place and the instruction.THE THREAD
And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of their witness, and they did not love their living souls, even unto death.The Greek word translated “testimony” belongs to the same witness-family as “witnesses” here; Revelation describes testimony held even under threat of death. Matthew shows its counterfeit: accusation wearing the form of witness without truth.
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