What Does Matthew 4:23 Mean?
And Jesus went around all Galilee, teaching in their gatherings, and crying out the good news of the governance, and healing every sickness and every weakness among the people.
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 Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.THE KEY
The kingdom’s announcement takes bodily form as care that meets sickness and weakness.
THE MEANING
The good news of the kingdom reaches people through teaching, public announcement, and healing. Its reign is visible in care that meets affliction among the people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The kingdom is only an idea proclaimed in words, with no bearing on bodily affliction.
THE ROOT
θεραπεύων
therapeuōn
GROWS FROM
θεραπευ-
therapeu-
To attend to, care for, treat, or heal.
The Greek word for healing also carries the sense of attending to someone’s need. The verse presents healing as care reaching people in their affliction, not as an act detached from them.
ALSO GROWS
therapeia: Care, treatment, healing.
θεραπεία
The related noun names the care needed by those who suffer; Luke 9:11 pairs this same word family with speaking about God’s kingdom.
therapeutēs: An attendant or healer.
θεραπευτής
This branch names one who attends to another, showing the care-centered sense carried by the healing word.
βασιλεία
basileia
GROWS FROM
βασιλευ-
basileu-
Royal rule, reign, or kingship; by extension, a realm under that rule.
“Kingdom” carries the sense of governance as well as a realm. Here that reign is announced in words and made visible in the care reaching people who are sick or weak.
ALSO GROWS
basileus: King.
βασιλεύς
The related noun names the one who rules, bringing the personal source of the announced governance into view.
basileuō: To reign or rule as king.
βασιλεύω
This verb makes the active sense of the kingdom clear: it is a reign whose presence can be recognized in what happens among the people.
THE PATTERN
The announcement of God’s reign arrives alongside acts that restore people in affliction.
The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.And Jesus went around all the cities and villages, teaching in their gatherings, heralding the good news of the governance, and healing every sickness and every weakness among the people.THE THREAD
And the crowds, when they knew it, followed him, and he received them, and spoke to them of the governance of God, and healed those who had need of healing.Luke pairs speaking about God’s kingdom with “healing,” using the same θεραπευ- word family found in Matthew’s “healing.” The shared root lets the two verses disclose the same pattern: the announced reign is present where people’s need is received and cared for.
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