What Does Matthew 28:11 Mean?
While they were going, behold, some of the guard came into the city and brought word to the chief priests of all the things that had happened.
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
Now when they were going, behold, some of the watch came into the city, and shewed unto the chief priests all the things that were done.THE KEY
The women carry the resurrection toward Jesus’ brothers as the guards carry it toward the chief priests: the same event enters two different networks at once.
THE MEANING
An event becomes public through the people who carry it. Here, the women move toward Jesus’ brothers while the guards report to the chief priests, showing how the same event enters different networks.
THE ROOT
ἀπήγγειλαν
apēngeilan
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
angel-
Message or announcement; this word family includes messengers and the act of announcing.
The verb translated “showed” means “reported” or “announced,” and belongs to the same word family as ἄγγελος (angelos, “messenger”). English hides that the guards become messengers: the report’s destination is part of how the event moves through the world.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: Messenger
ἄγγελος
This noun makes the guards’ role visible: they carry news into the city.
angelia: Message or report
ἀγγελία
The shared root links the act of reporting with the message being carried; the word itself does not decide how the report will be received.
THE PATTERN
What witnesses encounter moves beyond them through the reports they carry, and those reports shape what others can know.
Then they said to one another, We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we keep silent. If we wait until the morning light, crookedness will find us. So now come, and let us go and tell the king's house.And they turned back from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
Mary Magdalene came and brought word to the disciples that she had perceived the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.Matthew’s “reported” and John’s “told” draw on the ἀγγελ- (angel-, “messenger/announce”) word family. Both passages show news of the resurrection carried onward, while the witnesses bring it to different people.
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