What Does Matthew 27:44 Mean?
The thieves also, who were crucified with him, threw the same insults into his face.
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
The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.THE KEY
The cross exposes how shared pain can still join a chorus of contempt instead of creating solidarity.
THE MEANING
Even those crucified beside Jesus join the reproach against him. Shared suffering does not by itself make people allies; the insult reaches him from people who know the same exposed pain.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Anyone who suffers what I suffer will naturally stand with me.
THE ROOT
ὠνείδιζον
ōneidizon
GROWS FROM
ὀνειδ-
reproach, disgrace
“threw the same insults into his face” in this verse is ōneidizon. The Greek verb means to reproach or taunt, and its word family holds the insult together with the disgrace it casts on someone. The verse shows the condemned beside Jesus adding their voices to that public shaming.
ALSO GROWS
óneidos: reproach, disgrace
ὄνειδος
This noun names the disgrace carried by the insult in the verse.
oneidismos: reproach, reviling
ὀνειδισμός
This branch names reproach as an attack a person can bear, extending the same word-family beyond the act of taunting.
THE PATTERN
A person under suffering can become the target of public reproach, even when others recognize that same suffering.
All who see me mock me; they open their lips, they shake the head.Flourishing are you when they revile you, and pursue you, and speak every evil word against you, lying, for my sake.If you are reviled in the nature of the Anointed One, flourishing are you, for the breath of weight and of God rests upon you. On their side he is spoken against, but on your side he is given weight.THE THREAD
Flourishing are you when they revile you, and pursue you, and speak every evil word against you, lying, for my sake.The word translated “revile” belongs to the same Greek root family as the reproach in this verse. Here Jesus names that hostility as something a person may meet for his sake; the cross shows it reaching him even from those suffering beside him.
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