What Does Matthew 27:22 Mean?
Pilate said to them, Then what should I do with Jesus, who is called the Anointed One? They all said to him, Let him be crucified.
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
Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified.THE KEY
The title “Anointed One” stands inside a question answered with a demand for execution.
THE MEANING
A question about what to do with a person becomes a demand to execute him. The title “Christ”, the Anointed One, remains beside the crowd’s blunt answer, without softening the violence it demands.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being called the Anointed One does not make a person safe from the crowd’s violence.
THE ROOT
σταυρωθήτω
staurōthētō
GROWS FROM
σταυρ- (staur-), the stem shared by σταυρός and σταυρόω
Stake or cross; by extension, the act of fastening someone to it.
“be crucified” in this verse is staurōthētō. The Greek verb in the crowd’s answer comes from the same word family as “cross.” The demand names an act of execution, not an abstract punishment.
ALSO GROWS
stauros: Cross; execution stake.
σταυρός
The noun names the instrument contained in the crowd’s demand to crucify.
staurōsis: Crucifixion.
σταύρωσις
This related noun names the same act as a concrete event, showing the force of the crowd’s verb.
Χριστόν
Christon
GROWS FROM
χρίω
chriō
To anoint, applying oil to someone or something.
“the Anointed One” in this verse is Christon. “Christ” means “Anointed One”; it is a title with meaning, not merely a name. The verse places that meaning beside the crowd’s demand for his execution.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: To anoint.
χρίω
This verb is the root of the title used for Jesus in the question.
chrisma: Anointing.
χρῖσμα
This related noun makes the act behind “Anointed One” visible.
christos: Anointed one.
χριστός
This is the title’s base form, carrying the meaning that remains present even as the crowd demands crucifixion.
THE PATTERN
A crowd’s judgment can turn a person into the target of collective violence.
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.When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him there. Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves, and crucify him, for I find no cause in him.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.THE THREAD
Then Pilate said to them, Why, what evil has he done? But they shrieked all the more beyond measure, Crucify him!The Greek uses the same σταυρόω (stauroō, “crucify”) word family for the crowd’s demand. Here the demand grows louder after the question of what evil he has done, showing how insistence can stand where an answer should be.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us