What Does Matthew 5:38 Mean?
You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
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
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:THE KEY
The repeated “for” makes the injury both the measure and the limit of the exchange.
THE MEANING
The verse names a response that matches the harm: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Its measure places a boundary on retaliation, so one injury cannot justify an ever larger one. It exposes how pain can turn into an exchange where each loss seems to authorize another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it undoes is that being wronged gives retaliation unlimited reach; the measure named here puts a boundary on repayment.
THE ROOT
ἀντί
anti
GROWS FROM
ἀντί
In place of, opposite to, or in exchange for.
“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” in this verse is anti. The Greek repeats ἀντί before each matching injury: an eye exchanged for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The exchange is measured; each repeated “for” sets a limit on how far the answer can reach.
ALSO GROWS
antallagma: An exchange or the price given in exchange.
ἀντάλλαγμα
The word’s exchange sense appears in Mark 8:37, where Jesus asks what a person can give in exchange for their life; it makes the verse’s measured return feel like a question of what is given back.
antilytron: A ransom given in exchange, a corresponding price.
ἀντίλυτρον
In 1 Timothy 2:6, the word carries ἀντί into the idea of a life given as a corresponding price, showing how this small word marks a relation between what is lost and what is returned.
THE PATTERN
Scripture first measures the exchange of harm, then names a response that refuses to return harm in kind.
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,Break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has set a blemish in a man, so shall it be set upon him.Give back to no one evil for evil. Look ahead to what is beautiful in the eyes of all people.THE THREAD
But I say to you, do not stand against evil. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.The same Greek element ἀντί (anti, “opposite to” or “in exchange for”) appears in ἀντιστῆναι (antistēnai, “to resist” or “stand against”). After naming a measured exchange of injury, the next verse turns to the stance of answering harm with counter-force.
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