What Does Matthew 3:13 Mean?
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan, toward John, to be immersed by him.
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 cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.THE KEY
The name Deliverance comes to the river of descent to enter immersion.
THE MEANING
Jesus, whose name carries deliverance, comes to the Jordan to receive immersion from John. The verse lets you meet deliverance as a movement that enters the water.
THE ROOT
βαπτισθῆναι
baptisthēnai
GROWS FROM
βαπ-
bap-
To dip or immerse.
English “baptized” can sound like the name of a rite; the Greek verb keeps the physical act in view: being immersed. Jesus comes to be placed within the water through John’s action.
ALSO GROWS
baptō: Dip or immerse.
βάπτω
This related verb keeps the bodily image of entering the water close to the verse.
baptisma: Immersion.
βάπτισμα
The noun names the act that Jesus comes to undergo here.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēshūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
Deliver, bring out from constriction into spaciousness.
“Jesus” in this verse is Yēshūaʿ. The name holds deliverance as nature, not merely as a title. Here, the one named Deliverance comes toward the waters and receives immersion.
ALSO GROWS
yasha: Deliver or rescue.
יָשַׁע
The name draws its sense from the act of bringing out toward spaciousness.
yeshuah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes the nature carried in Yeshua’s name explicit.
יַרְדֵּן
Yarden
GROWS FROM
ירד
y-r-d
Descend or go down.
Jordan reads as a place name in English, while its Hebrew form echoes descent. Beside the verb for immersion, the river’s name adds the image of entering downward into the waters.
ALSO GROWS
yārad: Descend or go down.
יָרַד
This verb is the root echo carried in the river’s name.
hōrīd: Bring or lead down.
הוֹרִיד
This causative form extends the root’s motion of descent, echoing the movement toward the Jordan.
THE PATTERN
Immersion places a person within a passage through descent, where cleansing or new life follows.
Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.So we were laid in the ground with him through immersion into death, that as the Anointed One was raised from the dead through the weight of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life.THE THREAD
Now when all the people were immersed, it came to pass that Jesus also, being immersed and praying, the heaven was opened.Luke uses the same Greek verb, βαπτίζω (baptizō), meaning immerse, for the people and for Jesus. The verse opens the immersion scene further by placing Jesus among those entering the water and linking his immersion with an opening from heaven.
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