What Does Matthew 27:16 Mean?
They had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
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 they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.THE KEY
The verse holds together a man marked out as notable and bound as a prisoner: captivity does not make him disappear.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now through the image of a person publicly identified by captivity, yet still called by name. Barabbas (Βαραββᾶν, Barabbān, a name commonly glossed “son of the father”) is both recognizable and bound; neither description consumes the person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Captivity strips a person of identity and makes him anonymous.
THE ROOT
ἐπίσημον
epísēmon
GROWS FROM
σημ-
Mark or sign: what makes something visible or recognizable.
Though translated “notable,” ἐπίσημον (epísēmon, marked or distinguished) belongs to the family of σῆμα (sēma, sign or mark): the person stands out as marked. The verse presents this captive as conspicuous, not erased by confinement.
ALSO GROWS
sēma: Sign, mark
σῆμα
It reveals the image within “notable”: someone marked out and made visible.
sēmainō: To signify, indicate
σημαίνω
It shares the mark-family and shows how a mark makes something known.
sēmeion: Sign, signal
σημεῖον
It carries the same mark-family into something recognizable as a sign.
δέσμιον
désmion
GROWS FROM
δεσμ-
Bond, tie; what binds.
English “prisoner” names a status, while δέσμιος (désmios, a person bound) keeps the bond itself audible. Paired with “notable,” the verse places visibility and constraint side by side.
ALSO GROWS
désmos: Bond, chain
δέσμος
It names the bond that makes the prisoner a bound person.
desmeúō: To bind, put in bonds
δεσμεύω
It shows the action that creates the condition named by “prisoner”.
desmṓtēs: Prisoner, captive
δεσμώτης
It shares the bond-root and makes the personhood within the condition explicit.
THE PATTERN
Confinement does not erase a person’s name or visibility.
And Joseph's master took him, and placed him in the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were bound; and there he was in the prison.In the middle of the night Paul and Silas prayed and sang praise to God, and the prisoners listened to them.THE THREAD
I therefore, the bound one in the Lord, urge you to walk in a way that matches the weight of the calling by which you were called.Ephesians uses the same Greek word δέσμιος (désmios, prisoner) found behind Matthew’s “prisoner.” The shared root carries the bond across different lives, while “of the Lord” and “called Barabbas” disclose different relations around the same bound condition.
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