What Does Matthew 7:15 Mean?
Watch for false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inside they are snatching wolves.
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
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.THE KEY
A trusted covering can conceal an appetite bent on seizing what is inside.
THE MEANING
This warning speaks now: a person can approach under the appearance of care while inwardly seeking to take and consume. The danger lies in the gap between the welcome exterior and the predatory nature within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a familiar, gentle appearance guarantees a gentle nature.
THE ROOT
ἅρπαγες
harpages
GROWS FROM
ἁρπαγ-
To seize, snatch, or carry off; by extension, to plunder.
The Greek word describes more than an animal’s hunger: it names a nature bent on taking. Its word family also describes snatching and plunder, bringing the wolf’s appetite into the human world of exploitation.
ALSO GROWS
harpazō: To snatch, seize, or carry off.
ἁρπάζω
The KJV renders a form of this verb as “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17; it makes the force of “ravening” concrete as taking something away.
harpagē: Plunder or robbery.
ἁρπαγή
In Hebrews 10:34, the KJV calls this “spoiling of your goods,” showing the same word family applied to predatory taking among people.
THE PATTERN
Predatory authority can hide behind a trusted appearance, while its nature shows in what it takes from those in its care.
Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, to pour out blood, and to make living souls perish, to cut for gain.For I know this, that after my leaving, heavy wolves will come in among you, not holding back from the flock.For such are false sent ones, workers of snares, reshaping themselves into sent ones of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Yet not altogether with the traders of bodies of this world, or with those who hold more, or with the snatchers, or with the servants of images, for then you would have to go out of the world.The Greek word rendered “extortioners” is ἅρπαξ (harpax, “plunderer”), from the same word family as “ravening.” The wolf’s predatory nature therefore has a human expression too: taking from others.
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