What Does Matthew 27:9 Mean?
Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was filled, saying, They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one who was valued, whom the children of Israel valued.
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 was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;THE KEY
The verse repeats the language of valuation until the silver price becomes a record of what its assigners are willing to call a person worth.
THE MEANING
You see a human being turned into a figure in a transaction: silver is named as the measure assigned to him. The repeated wording keeps the act of assigning value in view; the price tells you what the valuers set, not the whole nature of the one being valued.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The number someone assigns to a person is the measure of that person’s full worth.
THE ROOT
τιμή
timē
GROWS FROM
τιμ-
tim-
Value, honor, or a price assigned.
The Greek repeats this root in the price and in the words translated valued: the verse keeps the act of assigning worth in view. English separates price from valuation, while the repeated root binds them as one judgment made visible in silver.
ALSO GROWS
timaō: to value or honor
τιμάω
The verse’s forms for valued come from this verb, making the price an act of valuation rather than a neutral number.
átimos: dishonored, without honor
ἄτιμος
This branch shows the root’s other edge: the same language of worth can mark someone as given honor or denied it.
THE PATTERN
A price exposes the act by which one life is assigned value in a transaction.
Then Midianite traders passed by, and they drew him up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph into Egypt.And I said to them, If it is good in your eyes, give me my wages; and if not, leave off. And they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver.For you were bought in the marketplace for a price; so give weight to God in your body, and in your breath, which are God's.THE THREAD
For you were bought in the marketplace for a price; so give weight to God in your body, and in your breath, which are God's.The word translated price is τιμή (timē), the same root Matthew repeats for price and valued. Here, that root connects being bought with belonging to God, widening the question from what someone is priced at to whose claim defines a life.
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