What Does Matthew 9:17 Mean?
Nor do they pour new wine into old wineskins, for otherwise the skins burst and the wine is poured out, and the skins perish. But they pour new wine into new skins, and both are kept together.
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
Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.THE KEY
A vessel is measured by whether it can hold what is new without losing either the contents or itself.
THE MEANING
This verse names what happens when the container cannot hold what it receives: the skins rupture, the wine spills, and the skins are lost. When the vessel fits the wine, both are kept safe together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an old form can remain unchanged while safely holding what has become new.
THE ROOT
συντηροῦνται
syntērountai
GROWS FROM
τηρέω (tēreō), with συν- (syn-, with)
Keep, guard, watch over.
The word for “preserved” is built from syn, “with,” and tēreō, “keep”: the wine and the skins are kept together. The measure of a sound vessel is not simply that it lasts, but that it holds both contents and container safe.
ALSO GROWS
tēreō: Keep, guard, observe.
τηρέω
This is the base verb; John 17:12 uses it for keeping what is entrusted.
tērēsis: Keeping, custody, observance.
τήρησις
This related noun carries the idea of something held in care, illuminating what happens when both wine and skins are preserved.
ἀπόλλυνται
apollyntai
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
Perish, be destroyed, be lost.
The verb translated “perish” also carries the sense of being lost. The verse shows both outcomes: the skins are ruined, and the wine runs out and is lost.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: Loss, ruin, destruction.
ἀπώλεια
This related noun makes clear that “perishing” includes the loss of what can no longer be kept.
apolōlōs: Lost, perished.
ἀπολωλώς
This related form describes what has gone missing or been ruined, echoing the wine that spills away.
νέον
neón
GROWS FROM
νέος
neos
Young, recent, new.
Greek uses two different words that English renders “new”: νέον (neón, young or recent) for the wine, and καινούς (kainoús, fresh or new in condition) for the skins. The wording pairs young wine with a vessel made new in condition, a distinction English smooths over.
ALSO GROWS
neotēs: Youth.
νεότης
This word from the same root names the quality of being young, clarifying the sense of νέον as young wine.
neōteros: Younger, more recent.
νεώτερος
This related form retains the root’s sense of youth or recency, which distinguishes the wine’s newness from the skins’ new condition.
THE PATTERN
What is coming forth in a new form needs a vessel suited to it, or the strain brings loss.
Behold, my belly is like wine with no opening, and like new wineskins it will split.No one lays a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for its filling lifts away from the garment, and the tear grows worse.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.THE THREAD
While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your nature. Those you gave me I have kept, and none of them has perished, but the son of perishing, that the writing might be filled full.John uses tēreō (“keep”) for “I have kept” and apollymi (“be lost”) for “none of them is lost”, the same root families behind Matthew’s “preserved” and “perish.” The two verses set keeping and loss side by side: here, the fitting vessel keeps the wine and skins together.
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