What Does Matthew 27:61 Mean?
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting across from the tomb.
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 there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.THE KEY
The Greek word for tomb also carries the sense of a memorial, so the two Marys sit facing a place named for remembrance.
THE MEANING
Two women remain seated, facing what appears to be an ending. Their presence holds remembrance beside the tomb in the stillness of this moment.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνημ-
mnēm-
memory, remembrance
“sepulchre” in this verse is mnēmeion. Μνημεῖον (mnēmeion) means tomb or memorial and belongs to the word-family of memory. Burial and remembrance meet in one word: the tomb is also a place that keeps a life in memory.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This related word makes the memorial sense within “sepulchre” visible: the women face a place bound to remembering.
mnēmoneuō: to remember, call to mind
μνημονεύω
The same word-family names the act of remembering, joining the tomb as a memorial to the living act of keeping someone in mind.
THE PATTERN
Remembrance keeps a relationship present in the face of what appears to be an ending.
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark, and God caused a breath to cross over the earth, and the waters settled.I remember the deeds of the LORD; surely I remember your wonders of old.But Mary stood outside at the tomb, weeping, and as she wept, she bent low and looked into the tomb.THE THREAD
On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and she saw the stone lifted out of the tomb.John uses the same Greek word, μνημεῖον (mnēmeion), for “sepulchre.” Here Mary Magdalene returns to that place of remembrance before daybreak and finds the stone taken away.
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