What Does Matthew 9:31 Mean?
But they went out and spread his report through all that land.
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
But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.THE KEY
His “fame” is the report people carry outward: in Greek, the word for spreading it and the word for fame share a root.
THE MEANING
The report about him moves beyond the place where the witnesses meet him, carried from person to person until the whole region hears it. The preceding demand for silence gives that movement its tension: the boundary stands, and the account crosses it.
THE ROOT
διαφημίζω
diaphēmizō
GROWS FROM
φημ-
To say or speak; by extension, to report or make known.
“spread through” in this verse is diaphēmizō. The verb διαφημίζω (diaphēmizō, “spread abroad”) belongs to the same word family as φήμη (phēmē, “report” or “fame”). The action and its object echo each other: they make his fame by carrying a report about him.
ALSO GROWS
phēmi: To say or speak.
φημί
This is the speaking at the root of the report that travels through the region.
phēmē: A report, rumor, or reputation.
φήμη
This word names what the witnesses spread: fame is a report carried by speech.
THE PATTERN
What is witnessed becomes a report that moves beyond the person who experienced it.
Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.But he went out and began to herald it much, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer enter the city in plain sight, but stayed outside in the empty places, and they came to him from every side.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
But he went out and began to herald it much, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer enter the city in plain sight, but stayed outside in the empty places, and they came to him from every side.Mark uses the same Greek verb, διαφημίζω (diaphēmizō, “spread abroad”), for a report that keeps moving after a healing. The shared root links the report itself with the act of making it known; in Mark, that spread even changes where Jesus can go.
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