What Does Matthew 27:20 Mean?
But the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas, and to have Jesus perish.
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 the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.THE KEY
Persuaded into asking for the “son of the father,” the crowd calls for the destruction of the one whose name means deliverance.
THE MEANING
This verse shows how authority can shape desire until a demand for violence sounds like the crowd’s own choice. The crowd asks for Barabbas, “son of the father,” and calls for the destruction of Jesus, whose name carries deliverance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A choice does not become free simply because a crowd voices it; persuasion can shape the desire before the crowd speaks.
THE ROOT
ἔπεισαν
épeisan
GROWS FROM
πειθ
To persuade, win someone over, or bring someone to be convinced.
“persuaded” in this verse is épeisan. This verb family holds both winning someone over and yielding to persuasion. Authority shapes consent here, and the crowd’s lethal request then sounds like its own.
ALSO GROWS
peíthō: To persuade or convince.
πείθω
This is the verb’s lexical form, the root family behind “persuaded.”
peithómenos: Being persuaded; yielding or obeying.
πειθόμενος
This form shows the other side of persuasion: the person who gives way to it.
ἀπολέσωσιν
apolésōsin
GROWS FROM
ἀπολ
To destroy, cause to perish, or be lost.
“have Jesus perish” in this verse is apolésōsin. The verb translated “destroy” belongs to a Greek family that also speaks of perishing and loss. That shade does not lessen the violence: the crowd calls for Jesus to be destroyed, for the one named for deliverance to perish.
ALSO GROWS
apóllymi: To destroy or perish.
ἀπόλλυμι
This is the lexical form in the same verb family; its forms can describe both causing ruin and perishing.
apṓleia: Destruction, ruin, or loss.
ἀπώλεια
This related noun carries the language of loss within the same family as “destroy.”
apolōlōs: Having perished or been lost.
ἀπολωλώς
This form names the state of one who has perished, the result the crowd’s demand seeks.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēshūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
To deliver, bring out, or bring to safety.
Jesus’ name carries the root of deliverance, yet the crowd calls for his destruction. Beside him, Barabbas bears the name sense “son of the father,” sharpening the reversal in the scene.
ALSO GROWS
yāshaʿ: To deliver or bring to safety.
יָשַׁע
This verb shares the name’s root and gives its core sense of deliverance.
yeshuʿah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the deliverance carried in the name.
THE PATTERN
Persuasive voices can turn shared influence into a crowd’s harmful demand.
You shall not go after the crowd to do harm. Nor shall you answer in a dispute, turning aside after the crowd, to bend judgment.My son, if those who miss the mark coax you, do not go along.Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was poured together, and most did not know why they had come together.THE THREAD
But you turned away from the Set-Apart One and the Aligned One, and you asked for a man of blood to be given to you as favor.Both verses use αἰτέω (aitéō, “to ask” or “request”): here the crowd is persuaded to ask for Barabbas, and Acts says the people ask for a murderer to be granted to them. The repeated verb makes the request itself the hinge between influence and the choice of who lives.
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