What Does Matthew 28:13 Mean?
Saying, Say that his disciples came in the night and stole him away while we slept.
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
Saying, Say ye, His disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept.THE KEY
The claim says its witnesses were asleep, then asks you to trust them about what happened while they slept.
THE MEANING
The sentence holds two claims together: the speakers are asleep, and they know who removes the body. Those claims cannot both supply firsthand knowledge; the accusation’s certainty outruns what its own premise allows. The verse exposes the gap between a claim and the conditions that would let anyone know it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A confident account is not proof simply because it sounds certain; here, its own premise takes away the witness’s ability to know.
THE ROOT
κοιμωμένων
koimōmenōn
GROWS FROM
κοιμάω
koimaō
To sleep or lie down; in some New Testament uses, sleep is also a way of speaking about death.
“while we slept” in this verse is koimōmenōn. This word for sleep also describes those who have died, so the verse’s claim hinges on a state associated elsewhere with bodies beyond ordinary witness. The speakers say they are asleep while reporting what happened during their sleep; the root makes that conflict audible.
ALSO GROWS
ekoimēthēsan: They slept; they fell asleep.
ἐκοιμήθησαν
In Matthew 27:52, this form describes saints who slept and whose bodies arose, joining sleep-language with death.
koimētērion: Sleeping place; later, a place for the dead.
κοιμητήριον
This word-family carries sleep into the language of burial, linking the claim about a sleeping witness to the movement of a body.
ἔκλεψαν
eklepsan
GROWS FROM
κλέπτω
kleptō
To take secretly; to steal.
“stole” in this verse is eklepsan. The word names a secret taking, so the alleged act already includes concealment. The sentence assigns that act to people it also describes as asleep, giving a verdict without a witness who could know.
ALSO GROWS
kleptēs: A thief.
κλέπτης
This person-word names the one accused of secret taking, making the charge explicit.
klopē: Theft; stealing.
κλοπή
This noun names the alleged act itself, showing how the sentence turns an unexplained absence into a specific accusation.
λέγοντες
legontes
GROWS FROM
λέγω
legō
To say, speak, or tell.
“saying” in this verse is legontes. The verse frames the accusation as speech someone is instructed to repeat. The speaking root also gives rise to words for a message or account, keeping the making of the explanation inside the verse’s focus.
ALSO GROWS
logos: A word, message, or account.
λόγος
The spoken claim becomes an account offered to explain what happened.
lexis: A word or expression.
λέξις
This branch keeps attention on the specific wording through which the accusation is carried.
THE PATTERN
Testimony is weighed by what its speaker could know and whether the claim can be established.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.The aligned one at the head of his own contention seems straight, but his neighbor comes and searches him out.And in your instruction it stands written, that the witness of two people is true.THE THREAD
The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the set-apart ones who had fallen asleep were raised.The same Greek word translated “slept” here describes the saints whose bodies sleep and then arise. Its double use places sleeping beside death, sharpening the verse’s central fracture: a sleeper cannot testify to who moved a body while the sleeper was unaware.
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