What Does Matthew 7:3 Mean?
Why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not notice the beam in your own eye?
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 why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?THE KEY
Seeing another person’s flaw does not prove your own sight is clear; the same attention can miss what blocks your view of yourself.
THE MEANING
You notice a small obstruction in someone close to you while a far larger one occupies your own field of vision. Attention can be precise outwardly and absent inwardly at the same time.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that spotting another person’s flaw proves you see clearly. A sharp judgment can coexist with blindness to what distorts your own perception.
THE ROOT
κατανοεῖς
katanoeis
GROWS FROM
νοέω
noeō
Perceive or understand with the mind.
“considerest” in this verse is katanoeis. The Greek κατανοεῖς (katanoeis, “you perceive or consider”) names an act of noticing and understanding. The line pairs your eye’s quick detection of a small flaw in another with your failure to perceive the larger obstruction in yourself.
ALSO GROWS
noēma: thought, purpose
νόημα
This word for what is thought or perceived shows the mental side of the noticing that the verse says is missing.
noēsis: understanding, perception
νόησις
This related word makes clear that the issue is not just what falls within sight, but what you recognize.
βλέπεις
blepeis
GROWS FROM
βλέπω
blepō
See, look, perceive.
“look at” in this verse is blepeis. The Greek βλέπεις (blepeis, “you see or look”) is the outward seeing directed at the mote. The same verb appears in John 9:41 in the claim “we see,” where confidence in sight stands beside a blindness the speakers do not recognize.
ALSO GROWS
apoblepō: look toward, regard
ἀποβλέπω
This compound uses the same seeing word for directed attention, showing how sight can be aimed toward a particular object.
emblepō: look at attentively
ἐμβλέπω
This compound carries the same seeing word into a fixed gaze, sharpening the contrast between attention to another and perception of oneself.
THE PATTERN
Outward scrutiny can coexist with an unperceived distortion in the one doing the judging.
Why do you see the splinter in your brother's eye, but not perceive the beam in your own eye?Therefore you have no word to answer with, O human, whoever you are who judges others, for in whatever you judge in another you press the sentence down upon yourself, for you who judge practice the very same things.Who can tell the wanderings apart? From what is hidden, cleanse me.THE THREAD
Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no falling short. But now you say, We see; therefore your falling short remains.John 9:41 uses the same verb βλέπω (blepō, “see”) in the claim “we see.” In both verses, confidence in outward sight stands beside a blindness the speaker does not recognize.
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