What Does Matthew 26:62 Mean?
And the high priest stood up and said to him, Do you answer nothing? What is it that these bear witness against you?
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 the high priest arose, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? what is it which these witness against thee?THE KEY
A demand for your answer can sound like a verdict, but accusation and proof are still separate things.
THE MEANING
You can feel that when someone with authority demands an answer, the accusation is already settled. This verse keeps the two apart: testimony is being presented, and an answer is demanded, but the demand itself does not establish the truth. The answer has not yet come.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A forceful demand from authority makes the accusation true.
THE ROOT
ἀποκρίνομαι
apokrinomai
GROWS FROM
κριν
krin
To distinguish, decide, or judge.
“Answerest” in this verse is apokrinomai. The verb ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai), meaning “answer,” belongs to the family of κρίνω (krinō), meaning “decide” or “judge.” That link lets the judicial pressure show through: a reply is being demanded while testimony is aimed against him.
ALSO GROWS
krinō: To distinguish, decide, or pass judgment.
κρίνω
Its sense of judgment reveals the legal pressure carried by the demand for an answer.
krisis: A decision or judgment.
κρίσις
It shows how the answer is being demanded within a scene where judgment is at stake.
apokrisis: A response to a question or demand.
ἀπόκρισις
This noun shares the answer-word family and makes the demand for a reply explicit.
καταμαρτυροῦσιν
katamartyrousin
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ
martyr
Witness or testimony.
“witness against” in this verse is katamartyrousin. The verb καταμαρτυρέω (katamartyreō), meaning “testify against,” marks the witnesses’ speech as testimony directed against him. Its word family also names the witness and the act of bearing witness, so the charge is testimony being given, not a verdict already established.
ALSO GROWS
martys: A person who bears testimony.
μάρτυς
It names the person whose speech stands behind the charge.
martyria: The act or content of bearing witness.
μαρτυρία
It shows that the words spoken against him are testimony whose weight remains to be judged.
martyreō: To bear witness or give testimony.
μαρτυρέω
This branch shares the act of witness-bearing without itself making the testimony a verdict.
THE PATTERN
An accusation does not become established merely because someone speaks against another; testimony has to be weighed.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.And in your instruction it stands written, that the witness of two people is true.THE THREAD
Jesus said to him, You have said it. Yet I say to you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming upon the clouds of heaven.The Greek verb ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai), meaning “answer,” appears here and again in the opening “Jesus saith” of the reply in verse 64. The repeated root links the demand for an answer to the answer Jesus gives, without making the question’s framing the only one available.
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