What Does Matthew 5:37 Mean?
But let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no. For whatever is more than these comes from evil.
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 let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.THE KEY
A trustworthy yes needs no verbal scaffolding; the surplus is precisely what the verse puts under suspicion.
THE MEANING
Your speech has a clear center: a yes that stays yes and a no that stays no. The verse names what spills beyond that plainness as coming from evil. The measure is whether your word holds, not how much you wrap around it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Credibility does not come from piling on guarantees; extra words cannot make an unstable yes trustworthy.
THE ROOT
περισσόν
perisson
GROWS FROM
περισσ-
periss-
Beyond, exceeding, or overflowing.
English “more” can sound like a neutral quantity; περισσόν points to what exceeds the yes and no. Its word family carries the sense of abundance and overflow, placing the verse’s focus on surplus itself.
ALSO GROWS
perisseuō: Abound, overflow.
περισσεύω
The same word family makes “more” carry the image of speech spilling past what is needed.
perisseia: Abundance, surplus.
περισσεία
This form makes the excess explicit: the verse concerns what has accumulated beyond a plain yes or no.
λόγος
logos
GROWS FROM
λογ-
log-
Word, saying, or account.
The word here is logos: a word or saying that can stand on its own. Its family also includes a verb for reckoning or accounting, suggesting that speech carries weight and can be held to account.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, count, account.
λογίζομαι
This related word connects speech with what can be weighed or accounted for.
logion: Utterance, saying, oracle.
λόγιον
This branch keeps the focus on a spoken word as something delivered, not merely extra sound.
πονηροῦ
ponērou
GROWS FROM
πονηρ-
ponēr-
Bad, harmful, or wicked.
The phrase can mean “from evil” or “from the evil one”; Greek leaves the source open between a condition and a personal source. Either way, the verse locates the surplus beyond a plain yes or no in a harmful source.
ALSO GROWS
ponēria: Wickedness, evil.
πονηρία
This noun expresses evil as a condition or quality from which speech may come.
ho ponēros: The evil one; also, the wicked one.
ὁ πονηρός
The same word can name a source as a person, preserving the verse’s ambiguity about where the excess comes from.
THE PATTERN
Truthful speech is carried by a word that can stand without surplus guarantees.
What has gone out of your lips you shall guard and do, even a willing offering, according as you have vowed to the LORD your God, which you have spoken with your mouth.Do not let your mouth be startled, and do not let your heart hurry to bring a word out before the face of God. For God is in the heavens, and you are on the earth. Therefore let your words be few.Before all things, my brethren, do not swear, neither by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath. Let your yes be yes, and your no be no, lest you fall under judgment.THE THREAD
For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, this one is a complete man, able also to bridle the whole body.James uses the same Greek word, logos, for “word.” Matthew shows a word that stands plainly; James reveals how the tongue’s words reach beyond speech, shaping the whole body.
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