What Does Matthew 27:36 Mean?
Then they sat down and kept watch over him there.
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 sitting down they watched him there;THE KEY
The verb translated “watched” means to keep or guard, so this is custody as much as looking.
THE MEANING
You are shown what a watching gaze can do: it keeps a person under sustained attention. They sit and continue watching him there; the sentence gives their posture and persistence, but leaves their motive unstated.
THE ROOT
ἐτήρουν
etēroun
GROWS FROM
τηρ- (τηρέω, tēreō)
To keep, guard, or observe over time.
“kept watch” in this verse is etēroun. The verb carries the sense of keeping someone under watch, not merely glancing at him. English “watched” can sound like looking; the Greek also holds the force of custody.
ALSO GROWS
tērēsis: Keeping, custody, or observance
τήρησις
This noun makes the guarded, ongoing quality of the watching explicit.
tērētēs: Keeper or guardian
τηρητής
This branch names the person who does the keeping, bringing the watchers’ role into focus.
THE PATTERN
Keeping is sustained attention that holds someone in another’s charge.
Look, the watcher of Israel neither nods nor sleeps.Peter was therefore kept in prison, but prayer was stretched out by the assembly toward God for him.While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your nature. Those you gave me I have kept, and none of them has perished, but the son of perishing, that the writing might be filled full.THE THREAD
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your nature. Those you gave me I have kept, and none of them has perished, but the son of perishing, that the writing might be filled full.The same Greek verb rendered “watched” here is rendered “kept” in Jesus’ words. One root spans the watch held over him and his keeping of those entrusted to him.
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