What Does Matthew 4:4 Mean?
But he answered and said, It is written, Humankind shall not live by bread alone, but by every word going out through the mouth of God.
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
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.THE KEY
God’s word is pictured as going forth from its source to sustain life, not merely as an idea stored in a text.
THE MEANING
Your life depends on more than what reaches your table: it also depends on what comes forth from God. The verse places God’s word alongside bread as a real source of life, so material provision is not the whole account of living.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that material supply alone can account for life is the claim this verse unsettles.
THE ROOT
ἐκπορευομένῳ
ekporeuomenō
GROWS FROM
πορευ-
poreu-
To go, travel, or make one’s way.
“going out through” in this verse is ekporeuomenō. The Greek verb joins ἐκ (ek, out) to the idea of going: the word is described as going forth from God’s mouth. English can make this sound like a quality of the word; the Greek also gives it motion from its source.
ALSO GROWS
poreuomai: Go, travel, make one’s way.
πορεύομαι
It shows the movement carried by the verb behind “proceedeth.”
poreia: A journey, course, or way.
πορεία
This branch carries the same root into the idea of a course being traveled.
ῥήματι
rhēmati
GROWS FROM
ῥη-
rhē-
To say or speak; an utterance, something spoken.
The Greek names this as a spoken utterance, not simply a message as an abstract idea. Paired with the verb for going forth, the word is speech coming from its source.
ALSO GROWS
rhētos: Spoken, stated.
ῥητός
It keeps the root’s sense of what has been said or expressed.
rhētōr: A speaker or public orator.
ῥήτωρ
It carries the same speech-family toward the person who speaks.
THE PATTERN
Life is sustained by God’s word as well as by material provision.
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.This is my comfort in my bowing low, for your word has brought me to life.It is the breath that gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are breath, and they are life.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.In the Hebrew, מוֹצָא (motsaʾ, going forth) comes from יָצָא (yatsaʾ, to go out); Matthew’s Greek likewise describes the word as going forth from God’s mouth. The languages preserve the same movement from source to life.
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