What Does Matthew 3:9 Mean?
And do not think to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father; for I say to you, God is able to raise up children for Abraham out of these stones.
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 think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.THE KEY
God can raise Abraham’s children even from stone, so ancestry cannot fence in the future of a people.
THE MEANING
A family line does not place a boundary around whom God can raise into Abraham’s children. The stones make the claim vivid: what seems unable to bear life can become the place from which a people arise.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Having Abraham as a father guarantees belonging, and God’s work must stay within the lineage I already recognize.
THE ROOT
ἐγεῖραι
egeirai
GROWS FROM
ἐγερ-
The Greek verbal stem eger-, meaning to rouse, awaken, or raise.
“raise up” in this verse is egeirai. The same Greek verb carries the senses of waking, rousing, and raising, gathering awakening and resurrection in one action. Here children are life raised where stone offers no natural source.
ALSO GROWS
egeirō: to wake, rouse, or raise
ἐγείρω
This is the verb behind ἐγεῖραι in the verse; it gives “raise children” the force of bringing them to life.
egersis: a rising or resurrection
ἔγερσις
This related noun uses the same consonantal stem and shows the root reaching from awakening to rising from death.
τέκνα
tekna
GROWS FROM
τεκ-
The Greek stem tek-, associated with bearing or bringing forth.
τέκνα (tekna, children) belongs to the same consonantal family as τίκτω (tiktō, to bear). The verse’s sharp turn is that Abraham’s children are not a fixed possession of a bloodline; they can be brought forth where lineage seems impossible.
ALSO GROWS
teknon: a child or offspring
τέκνον
This is the singular form of the word used for “children,” keeping the focus on offspring and kinship.
tiktō: to bear or bring forth
τίκτω
Its shared τεκ consonants connect children with the act of bringing forth, illuminating how the verse imagines a new source of kinship.
THE PATTERN
God brings life and belonging forth from places that seem unable to produce them.
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but Abraham, father of multitudes, for I have set you as a father of many nations.Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.As it is written, I have set you as a father of many nations, before God, on whom he leaned his full weight, who makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were.THE THREAD
Counting that God was able to raise him even from the dead, from there also he brought him home as a likeness.Matthew’s ἐγεῖραι (egeirai, to raise up) comes from ἐγείρω (egeirō, to rouse or raise); Hebrews uses the same verb in “raise him up.” The shared word links children from stones with Isaac raised from the dead: in both verses, God’s action reaches life where ordinary expectation sees none.
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