What Does Matthew 27:38 Mean?
Then two thieves were crucified with him, one on the right and another on the left.
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
Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.THE KEY
At the center of the scene is someone executed in the company of plunderers, not set apart from them.
THE MEANING
You encounter Jesus between two men described by a word for bandits or plunderers. His place among the condemned is part of the scene itself: one man on either side, all sharing the same execution.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse unsettles the assumption that the central figure stands apart from the condemned; here, he is physically flanked by them.
THE ROOT
λῃσταί
lēstai
GROWS FROM
λῃστ-
Robber, bandit, or plunderer
This word can carry the sense of forceful robbery beneath the familiar English “thieves.” That shade places Jesus beside men associated with taking by force, giving the arrangement a sharper edge.
ALSO GROWS
lēstēs: Robber or bandit
λῃστής
The singular form names each of the men beside Jesus.
lēsteia: Robbery or brigandage
λῃστεία
This related noun carries the plundering sense of the word family into the act itself.
σταυρόω
stauroō
GROWS FROM
σταυρ-
Stake or cross; the instrument of crucifixion
“crucified with him” in this verse is stauroō. The word family names both the cross and the act of crucifying. Here, the shared language keeps the instrument and the bodily execution joined: all three men are crucified.
ALSO GROWS
stauros: Cross or stake
σταυρός
The noun names the instrument carried in the verb “crucified.”
stauroō: Crucify
σταυρόω
The verb names the act shared by Jesus and the two men beside him.
THE PATTERN
The one at the center is counted among the condemned, sharing their place in public view.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his living soul to death, and was counted with the rebels. He carried the falling short of many, and for the rebels he stepped in.For I say to you, what is written must yet reach its end in me, and he was reckoned among the unbounded. For the things concerning me come to their end.They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right hand and the other on his left.THE THREAD
They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right hand and the other on his left.Mark uses the same Greek word, λῃσταί (lēstai, bandits or plunderers), for the two men beside Jesus. That shared word opens the shade beneath “thieves”: the scene places Jesus among men associated with plundering by force.
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