What Does Matthew 28:5 Mean?
The messenger answered and said to the women, Do not fear, for I know that you seek Jesus, who was crucified.
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 the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.THE KEY
Fear is answered by recognition: the women’s search is known, and the name they seek already carries deliverance.
THE MEANING
Your fear is met with recognition: the search you carry is named, and Jesus is identified as the one crucified. Longing and the reality of death remain in the same sentence, with neither hidden from view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fear leaves your search unrecognized: the messenger names exactly whom you seek and acknowledges plainly that he was crucified.
THE ROOT
ζητεῖτε
zēteite
GROWS FROM
ζητ
The seeking and pursuing core carried by words for looking and searching.
The Greek identifies the women by what they are seeking: Jesus. The same ζητ- family appears when the messengers ask why they seek the living among the dead (Luke 24:5), making their search the hinge between grief and resurrection.
ALSO GROWS
zēteō: to seek, look for
ζητέω
This is the verb family behind the women’s action in the verse.
zētēsis: a search or inquiry
ζήτησις
It shows the same root can name the pursuit itself, not only the act of seeking.
zētētēs: a seeker or inquirer
ζητητής
It names the person shaped by this pursuit, matching the women as they seek Jesus.
φοβεῖσθε
phobeisthe
GROWS FROM
φοβ
Fear or alarm; being afraid.
The plural command addresses the women together, meeting their alarm without denying it. The same root names both the inner fear (φόβος) and what inspires fear (φοβερός), while the messenger’s words limit fear’s authority over the moment.
ALSO GROWS
phobos: fear, alarm
φόβος
It names the fear that the messenger addresses directly.
phoberos: fearsome, alarming
φοβερός
It names what provokes fear, showing the root spans both the response and its cause.
phobeomai: to fear, be afraid
φοβέομαι
This verb shares the root of the command not to fear.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēšūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישׁע
Deliver; bring into safety and spaciousness.
Jesus is the Greek form of Yeshua, a name from ישׁע that carries the nature of deliverance, being brought out from constriction into spaciousness. Here that name is paired with “the one crucified,” holding deliverance and the wound of death together in the verse.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: to deliver, bring out to safety
יָשַׁע
This verb carries the root meaning behind the name Jesus.
yeshuʿah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
It names the deliverance contained in the name’s root.
mōshiaʿ: deliverer
מוֹשִׁיעַ
It names one who acts from the same deliverance-bearing root.
THE PATTERN
Fear does not make seeking invisible; scripture answers it by hearing the search or declaring presence.
I seek the LORD, and he answers me, and snatches me out of every place of dread.Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not look about in dismay, for I am your God. I will grip you, and I will help you, and I will hold you up with the right hand of my alignment.Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? She, supposing him to be the one who tends the garden, said to him, Sir, if you have carried him off, tell me where you have placed him, and I will lift him away.THE THREAD
And as they were afraid and leaned their faces toward the ground, the men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead?Both verses use the ζητ- root for seeking. Luke’s question, “the living among the dead,” reveals the tension inside Matthew’s phrase “Jesus, which was crucified”: the search is real, while crucifixion is not the final word.
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