What Does Matthew 27:60 Mean?
He laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone against the door of the tomb, and went away.
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 laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.THE KEY
The Greek name for a tomb carries the sense of a memorial: even as the stone closes the entrance, the scene holds remembrance rather than erasure.
THE MEANING
You meet death as a tangible enclosure: a body is laid in a new chamber cut into rock, a great stone closes the entrance, and the one who lays it there departs. Yet the word translated “tomb” also carries the sense of a memorial, so remembrance remains within the scene’s apparent finality.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief that burial erases a person is unsettled by the tomb’s own name as a place of remembering.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνη-
mnē-
Remembering, calling to mind
The word for tomb belongs to the language of memory. English presents a burial place; the Greek also names a place of remembrance, holding the one laid within as someone remembered.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmosynon: Memorial, remembrance
μνημόσυνον
This branch makes explicit the memory held within the word for tomb.
mnēmoneuō: Remember, call to mind
μνημονεύω
This branch shows the same memory root at work as an act of remembering.
ἐλατόμησεν
elatomēsen
GROWS FROM
λᾶς + τέμνω (lās + temnō)
Stone + cut; to cut or quarry stone
“hewn out” in this verse is elatomēsen. The verb for hewing carries the idea of cutting stone, so this is a chamber shaped into the rock rather than a natural hollow. The burial place is made by cutting into what is solid.
ALSO GROWS
latomos: Stonecutter
λατόμος
The related word names the worker who cuts stone, bringing the labor of shaping the tomb into view.
temnō: Cut
τέμνω
This verb is the cutting element in the compound and shows what “hewn out” contains.
ἐκύλισεν
ekylisen
GROWS FROM
κυλ-
kyl-
Roll, cause to roll
The stone is not simply placed at the entrance; it is rolled there, making closure an act of movement. The same root appears when the stone is rolled away, so this boundary can move again.
ALSO GROWS
apokyliō: Roll away
ἀποκυλίω
This form uses the same rolling root when the stone is moved from the tomb’s entrance.
proskyliō: Roll toward or against
προσκυλίω
This form shows the same action of rolling a stone to a doorway.
THE PATTERN
A tomb is made or sealed as a bounded place, yet the stone marking its threshold can be moved.
What is yours here, and who is yours here, that you have hewn yourself a grave here, like one who hews his grave on the heights and carves a dwelling for himself into the cliff?So Jesus, again snorting within himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone rested upon it.And behold, there was a great earthquake, for a messenger of the LORD came down out of the heavens, and came and rolled the stone away from the door, and sat upon it.THE THREAD
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for a messenger of the LORD came down out of the heavens, and came and rolled the stone away from the door, and sat upon it.Here the verb is ἐκύλισεν (ekylisen), “rolled”; there, ἀπεκύλισεν (apekylisen), “rolled away,” carries the same κυλ- (kyl-) root. The repeated root turns the stone’s closure into a boundary the story moves.
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