What Does Matthew 8:17 Mean?
So that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be filled, saying, He himself lifted our weaknesses and carried our sicknesses.
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
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.THE KEY
Healing here takes the shape of burden-bearing: Jesus takes up your weakness and carries your sickness.
THE MEANING
Your weakness and illness are named as real burdens, and Jesus takes them up and carries them. The verse places his healing work at the bodily weight of what hurts.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that illness is unseen by him or that weakness makes you a burden he will not take up.
THE ROOT
ἐβάστασεν
ebastasen
GROWS FROM
βαστάζω
bastazō
to carry or bear a load
“carried” in this verse is ebastasen. This same verb describes bearing one another’s burdens and Jesus carrying the cross. The verse gives healing a bodily shape: sickness is treated as a weight Jesus takes upon himself.
ALSO GROWS
bastazete: you bear or carry
βαστάζετε
Galatians 6:2 uses this form for bearing one another’s burdens, making the verse’s burden-bearing image visible in shared care.
bastazōn: carrying
βαστάζων
John 19:17 uses this form when Jesus carries the cross, giving the same verb a physical, bodily weight.
ἀσθενείας
astheneias
GROWS FROM
ἀσθεν-
asthen-
weakness or lack of strength; the word family joins the privative ἀ- (a-, without) with σθένος (sthenos, strength)
“weaknesses” in this verse is astheneias. The word names weakness plainly, including the weakness of illness. Set beside the separate word for sickness, it holds both frailty and disease within the burden Jesus takes up.
ALSO GROWS
asthenēs: weak, without strength
ἀσθενής
This adjective makes the same weakness explicit, showing that the verse’s infirmity language reaches beyond a single diagnosis.
asthenei: is weak or sick
ἀσθενεῖ
John 11:3 uses this form for Lazarus’s illness, showing how this word family speaks of bodily sickness as well as weakness.
ἔλαβεν
elaben
GROWS FROM
λαμβάνω
lambanō
to take, receive, or lay hold of
“lifted” in this verse is elaben. The verb gives Jesus an active part in the burden: he takes the infirmities up. Its compound relatives can describe taking hold to help or receiving someone into one’s care.
ALSO GROWS
antilambanomai: to take hold of, help
ἀντιλαμβάνομαι
Luke 1:54 uses a form of this verb for God helping Israel, giving the word family a sense of support as taking hold.
paralambanō: to receive or take along
παραλαμβάνω
Matthew 1:20 uses this compound for taking Mary as a wife, showing how the family can carry the sense of receiving someone into one’s care.
THE PATTERN
Suffering is met through bearing: what weighs on a person is taken up and carried.
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.Carry one another's weights, and so you fill up the instruction of the Anointed One.And carrying his cross, he went out to the place called the place of a skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.THE THREAD
Surely he has borne our sicknesses, and carried our wounds. Yet we reckoned him struck, beaten by God, and bowed low.Isaiah’s Hebrew says חֳלָיֵנוּ (ḥolayenu, our sicknesses) and מַכְאֹבֵינוּ (mak’ovenu, our pains), while the KJV renders them “griefs” and “sorrows” there. Matthew’s wording makes the bodily sickness in this cited line plain: the paired language is about taking up illness and carrying pain.
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