What Does Matthew 8:30 Mean?
Now there was a herd of many swine grazing far off from them.
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 there was a good way off from them an herd of many swine feeding.THE KEY
The herd is far off, but distance measures where it is, not whether the next movement can reach it.
THE MEANING
You see the men and the herd occupying separate places, with the herd grazing at a distance. The space matters, but it does not settle what can reach across it; the next movement in the scene crosses that distance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the assumption that distance keeps an unseen disturbance from reaching what lies beyond it.
THE ROOT
μακρὰν
makran
GROWS FROM
μακρ
makr
Longness or extension across space or time.
“far off” in this verse is makran. Here μακράν marks the herd’s spatial distance. The same μακρ- family also reaches into time through μακροθυμία, patience or being slow to heat, so the word-family holds one idea of length across space and sustained time.
ALSO GROWS
makros: long; far, distant
μακρός
This adjective carries length across space, illuminating the distance between the men and the grazing herd.
makrothymia: patience; slow to heat
μακροθυμία
This branch carries the same sense of length into time, where a response is held back over a long span.
THE PATTERN
Distance names where something is, but does not by itself exclude it from nearness or healing.
I create the fruit of the lips. Wholeness, wholeness to the one far off and to the one near, says the LORD, and I will heal him.And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.But now, in the Anointed One, Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And he rose and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and his inward parts were moved, and he ran and fell upon his neck and kissed him.Luke uses the same Greek distance word, μακράν, for the son who is still far away when his father sees him. In both verses, distance is the space where the next movement begins.
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