The Fallible Study Bible

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Matthew10:26–31

Fear God Alone

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Matthew 10:26–31 — Fear God Alone. Each verse below carries the full apparatus: the Berean Standard Bible, the vocalized original (tap any word), and a parsed breakdown of every term transcribed from the interlinear. Synthesized commentary, canonical threads, and the reading of Christ gather at the end, over the whole unit.

26

So do not be afraid of them. For there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, and nothing hidden that will not be made known.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

oun phobēthēte Mē autous gar estin ouden kekalymmenon ho ouk apokalyphthēsetai kai krypton ho gnōsthēsetai ou

Word by word16 · parsed
οὖνounSoG3767
√ οὖν — (adverbially) certainly, or (conjunctionally) accordinglyConjunction
φοβηθῆτεphobēthētedo not be afraidG5399
√ φοβέω — to frighten, iVerbAorist Subjunctive Passive2nd Person Plural
phobeō: to frighten, to be put in fear The unit's keyword, sounded three times (10:26, 28, 31) and each time with a different grammatical shape. Here the aorist subjunctive with mē forbids the act of taking fright at a named group; in verse 28 the present imperative forbids a settled disposition. The whole paragraph is a re-aiming rather than an abolition of fear: not less fear, but fear correctly addressed.
ΜὴMē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
αὐτούςautousof themG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounAccusative Masculine 3rd Person Plural
γάρgarForG1063
√ γάρ — properly, assigning a reason (used in argument, explanation or intensificationConjunction
gar: for, assigning a reason A light connective, but it marks that what follows is the ground of the command, not a separate saying.
ἐστινestinthere isG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Singular
οὐδὲνoudennothingG3762
√ οὐδείς — not even one (man, woman or thing), iAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
κεκαλυμμένονkekalymmenonconcealedG2572
√ καλύπτω — to cover up (literally or figuratively)VerbPerfect Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Neuter Singular
kalyptō: to cover up A relatively rare verb (7 verses in the Greek New Testament). Its other occurrences set the register: a lamp covered with a vessel (Luke 8:16), the waves covering the boat (Matthew 8:24), the gospel veiled to the perishing (2 Corinthians 4:3), love covering sins (1 Peter 4:8), the mountains begged to cover the condemned (Luke 23:30). Here the covering is provisional, and the perfect participle says it is still in place at the moment of speaking.
ὃhothatG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Neuter Singular
οὐκoukvvvG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἀποκαλυφθήσεταιapokalyphthēsetaiwill not be disclosedG601
√ ἀποκαλύπτω — to take off the cover, iVerbFuture Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
apokalyptō: to take off the cover The verb of unveiling, in the future passive: the uncovering is certain and is someone else's act. The commentators divide on what gets uncovered and when. Gill limits it chiefly to the public success of the gospel in history; JFB and Ellicott carry it to the final assize, JFB citing 1 Corinthians 4:5; the Pulpit Commentary reads it of the disciples' own relation to Christ, which they are not to keep cloaked. The Greek itself names no date.
καὶkaiand [nothing]G2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
κρυπτὸνkryptonhiddenG2927
√ κρυπτός — concealed, iAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
kryptos: concealed, hidden Paired with kalyptō so that the sentence has two covers, one draped over and one tucked away. The Pulpit Commentary distinguishes them: the first is stripped of its disguise, the second is brought out and its true character perceived.
ὃhothatG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounNominative Neuter Singular
γνωσθήσεταιgnōsthēsetaiwill not be made knownG1097
√ γινώσκω — to "know" (absolutely) in a great variety of applications and with many implications (as follow, with others not thus clearly expressed)VerbFuture Indicative Passive3rd Person Singular
ginōskō: to know Future passive again, the second of two guaranteed reversals. Knowing, not merely seeing, is what is promised: the hidden thing will not simply be exposed but understood. Poole, Barnes and Gill all read the immediate reference as the vindication of the disciples' integrity, which men now misread.
οὐou. . .G3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
27

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the housetops.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

ho legō hymin en tē skotia eipate en tō phōti kai ho akouete eis to ous kēryxate epi tōn dōmatōn

Word by word20 · parsed
ὃhoWhatG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
λέγωlegōI tellG3004
√ λέγω — properly, to "lay" forth, iVerbPresent Indicative Active1st Person Singular
legō: to lay forth, to say Present tense, first person singular, and the Pulpit Commentary observes that the pronoun is absent: legō, not egō legō. The stress falls on the communication rather than on the speaker's person, and there is no time limit attached to it.
ὑμῖνhyminyouG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounDative 2nd Person Plural
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
τῇtētheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Feminine Singular
σκοτίᾳskotiadarkG4653
√ σκοτία — dimness, obscurity (literally or figuratively)NounDative Feminine Singular
skotia: dimness, obscurity The darkness here is not moral but pedagogical, the half-light of parable and private explanation. Ellicott ties it to John 16:12, the method of teaching men only what they are able to bear; Gill insists the primary sense is simply privacy, teaching in a house with no one else present.
εἴπατεeipatespeakG2036
√ ἔπω — to speak or say (by word or writing)VerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Plural
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
τῷtōtheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleDative Neuter Singular
φωτίphōtidaylightG5457
√ φῶς — compare G5316 (φαίνω), G5346 (φημί))NounDative Neuter Singular
phōs: light Light is where the thing is to be said, not where it is to be understood. The pairing of skotia with phōs is a lexeme pair Luke 8:16 also carries, in the parable of the lamp that is not covered.
καὶkaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ὃhowhatG3739
√ ὅς — the relatively (sometimes demonstrative) pronoun, who, which, what, thatPersonal / Relative PronounAccusative Neuter Singular
ἀκούετεakoueteis whisperedG191
√ ἀκούω — to hear (in various senses)VerbPresent Indicative Active2nd Person Plural
akouō: to hear Present active: a continuing hearing, set against the two aorist imperatives that command the speaking. The disciples hear on and on; they are to speak out decisively.
εἰςeisinG1519
√ εἰς — to or into (indicating the point reached or entered), of place, time, or (figuratively) purpose (result, etcPreposition
τὸto[your]G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Singular
οὖςousearG3775
√ οὖς — the ear (physically or mentally)NounAccusative Neuter Singular
ous: the ear The Pulpit Commentary compares the Old Testament idiom of uncovering the ear (1 Samuel 9:15, of God; 1 Samuel 20:2 and following, of man), which puts this phrase in the family of revelation language rather than of gossip.
κηρύξατεkēryxateproclaimG2784
√ κηρύσσω — to herald (as a public crier), especially divine truth (the gospel)VerbAorist Imperative Active2nd Person Plural
kēryssō: to herald, especially divine truth The pivot of the verse and of the unit's logic. Everything the disciples will suffer in verse 28 follows from obeying this imperative, and the certainty of verse 26 is what makes obeying it reasonable: since concealment is temporary anyway, secrecy is the one strategy guaranteed to fail.
ἐπὶepifromG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
τῶνtōntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Neuter Plural
δωμάτωνdōmatōnhousetopsG1430
√ δῶμα — properly, an edifice, iNounGenitive Neuter Plural
dōma: an edifice, a housetop A rare noun (7 verses). Everywhere else in the Gospels and Acts the roof is where a man goes to flee (Matthew 24:17; Mark 13:15; Luke 17:31) or to pray and see a vision (Acts 10:9). Here alone it is a pulpit. Benson notes the flat Syrian roof was in fact used for preaching, and adds Hegesippus' account of James.
28

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Kai phobeisthe mē apo tōn apoktennontōn to sōma de dynamenōn mē apokteinai tēn psychēn de mallon phobeisthe ton dynamenon apolesai kai psychēn kai sōma en geennē

Word by word26 · parsed
ΚαὶKaiG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
φοβεῖσθεphobeistheDo not be afraidG5399
√ φοβέω — to frighten, iVerbPresent Imperative Middle2nd Person Plural
phobeō: to frighten, to fear Present imperative now, where verse 26 had the aorist subjunctive. The Pulpit Commentary reads the difference as habit against single act: never go on being afraid of them, and always go on fearing him. The same verb carries both commands, which is why this is not an instruction to feel less but to redirect.
μὴmē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
ἀπὸapoofG575
√ ἀπό — "off," iPreposition
apo: off, away from A preposition doing theological work: fear that shrinks back, as against fear that faces toward.
τῶνtōnthose whoG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Plural
ἀποκτεννόντωνapoktennontōnkillG615
√ ἀποκτείνω — to kill outrightVerbPresent Participle ActiveGenitive Masculine Plural
apokteinō: to kill outright Christ concedes the persecutors their whole power in advance. Gill: this is the utmost of their efforts, and Luke's parallel adds that after that they have no more that they can do. The concession is what makes the comfort honest rather than sentimental; nothing here promises survival.
τὸtotheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Neuter Singular
σῶμαsōmabodyG4983
√ σῶμα — the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Neuter Singular
δὲdebutG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
δυναμένωνdynamenōncannotG1410
√ δύναμαι — to be able or possibleVerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveGenitive Masculine Plural
μὴmē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
ἀποκτεῖναιapokteinaikillG615
√ ἀποκτείνω — to kill outrightVerbAorist Infinitive Active
τὴνtēntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
ψυχὴνpsychēnsoulG5590
√ ψυχή — breath, iNounAccusative Feminine Singular
psychē: breath, soul, life Ellicott notes that Christ is using the popular two-part division of man, so that psychē here covers everything that lives and thinks and wills, the equivalent of Paul's fuller soul-and-spirit language in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Benson, following Doddridge and Whitby, builds an argument for the soul's conscious survival on the plain sense of the clause: what men can do to the body it is denied they can do to this.
δὲdevvvG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
μᾶλλονmallonInsteadG3123
√ μᾶλλον — (adverbially) more (in a greater degree)) or ratherAdverb
mallon: more, in a greater degree, rather A comparative that Gill refuses to read comparatively. He grants that the argument seems to move from lesser to greater, but holds the sense to be that God is to be feared not chiefly but solely, and observes that the Arabic, Ethiopic and Munster's Hebrew versions omit the word altogether. That is a textual observation with real weight for how the verse is heard.
φοβεῖσθεphobeisthefearG5399
√ φοβέω — to frighten, iVerbPresent Imperative Middle or Passive2nd Person Plural
τὸνtonthe [One who]G3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Masculine Singular
δυνάμενονdynamenoncanG1410
√ δύναμαι — to be able or possibleVerbPresent Participle Middle or PassiveAccusative Masculine Singular
ἀπολέσαιapolesaidestroyG622
√ ἀπόλλυμι — to destroy fully (reflexively, to perish, or lose), literally or figurativelyVerbAorist Infinitive Active
apollymi: to destroy fully, to lose The verb of total ruin, aorist infinitive, governing both nouns at once. It is also the verb of 2 Corinthians 4:3, where the veiled gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, which places the uncovering of verse 26 and the destroying of verse 28 in the same semantic field.
καὶkaibothG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
ψυχὴνpsychēnsoulG5590
√ ψυχή — breath, iNounAccusative Feminine Singular
καὶkaiandG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
σῶμαsōmabodyG4983
√ σῶμα — the body (as a sound whole), used in a very wide application, literally or figurativelyNounAccusative Neuter Singular
ἐνeninG1722
√ ἐν — "in," at, (up-)on, by, etcPreposition
γεέννῃgeennēhellG1067
√ γέεννα — valley of (the son of) HinnomNounDative Feminine Singular
geenna: valley of the son of Hinnom A dative of place. Barnes reasons from the phrase that the bodies of the wicked must be raised in order to be punished, and Gill likewise takes it as presupposing bodily resurrection, since a body must exist to be destroyed with the soul. That inference is theirs, drawn from the verse; the verse itself only names soul, body and the place.
29

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

Ouchi dyo strouthia pōleitai assariou kai ou hen ex autōn peseitai epi tēn gēn aneu hymōn tou Patros

Word by word18 · parsed
ΟὐχὶOuchi{Are} notG3780
√ οὐχί — not indeedIntPrtcl
δύοdyotwoG1417
√ δύο — "two"AdjectiveNominative Neuter Plural
στρουθίαstrouthiasparrowsG4765
√ στρουθίον — a little sparrowNounNominative Neuter Plural
strouthion: a little sparrow A diminutive, and a rare word (4 verses in the Greek New Testament, all of them in this saying and its Lukan parallel). Cambridge notes it covers any small bird. Barnes, quoting Thomson's Land and the Book, describes them as countless, tame, intrusive and destroyed as a worthless nuisance; the Pulpit Commentary adds that they were sold trussed in rows on skewers. The illustration works only because the bird is worth almost nothing.
πωλεῖταιpōleitaisoldG4453
√ πωλέω — to barter (as a pedlar), iVerbPresent Indicative Middle or Passive3rd Person Singular
pōleō: to barter, to sell A market verb. The point is not that God loves sparrows but that the market price is the measure of what men think they are worth.
ἀσσαρίουassarioufor a pennyG787
√ ἀσσάριον — an assarius or as, a Roman coinNounGenitive Neuter Singular
assarion: an assarius, a Roman coin Rare (2 verses, here and Luke 12:6). JFB observes that in Luke five sparrows go for two assaria, so the fifth is thrown in free: the arithmetic of the parallel is itself part of the argument about worthlessness.
καὶkaiYetG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
οὐounotG3756
√ οὐ — the absolute negative (compare G3361 (μή)) adverbAdverb
ἓνhenoneG1520
√ εἷς — oneAdjectiveNominative Neuter Singular
ἐξexofG1537
√ ἐκ — literal or figurativePreposition
αὐτῶνautōnthemG846
√ αὐτός — the reflexive pronoun self, used (alone or in the comparative G1438 (ἑαυτοῦ)) of the third person , and (with the proper personal pronoun) of the other personsPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive Neuter 3rd Person Plural
πεσεῖταιpeseitaiwill fallG4098
√ πίπτω — to fall (literally or figuratively)VerbFuture Indicative Middle3rd Person Singular
piptō: to fall The same verb that Luke 23:30 uses of the mountains falling on the condemned, in a verse that also asks to be covered. Here the fall is of a bird and the covering is off, which is the whole reversal of the unit in miniature.
ἐπὶepitoG1909
√ ἐπί — properly, meaning superimposition (of time, place, order, etcPreposition
τὴνtēntheG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleAccusative Feminine Singular
γῆνgēngroundG1093
√ γῆ — soilNounAccusative Feminine Singular
ἄνευaneuapart from the willG427
√ ἄνευ — withoutPreposition
aneu: without A very rare preposition (3 verses in the Greek New Testament: here, 1 Peter 3:1, 1 Peter 4:9). Its rarity gives the clause a certain deliberateness, and its purely negative force, as the Pulpit Commentary argues, keeps the sentence from asserting that God kills the bird. Gill and Poole nevertheless read a positive divine ordering here, Gill concluding that nothing comes by chance and that the sparrow is not shot but by the will of God. That is an inference the preposition permits but does not require.
ὑμῶνhymōnof yourG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 2nd Person Plural
τοῦtouG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Masculine Singular
ΠατρὸςPatrosFatherG3962
√ πατήρ — a "father" (literally or figuratively, near or more remote)NounGenitive Masculine Singular
patēr: a father The decisive word of the argument, and it is genitive with ὑμῶν: your Father. The Pulpit Commentary: for this and nothing less is God's relation to you. The comfort is not that providence is thorough but that the thorough providence belongs to a Father who is theirs.
30

And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

de kai hai triches tēs hymōn kephalēs eisin pasai ērithmēmenai

Word by word10 · parsed
δὲdeAndG1161
√ δέ — but, and, etcConjunction
καὶkaievenG2532
√ καί — and, also, even, so then, too, etcConjunction
kai: and, also, even Here ascensive, “even”: the argument climbs from the cheapest bird to the least countable detail of the disciple's own body.
αἱhaithe veryG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleNominative Feminine Plural
τρίχεςtricheshairsG2359
√ θρίξ — of uncertain derivationNounNominative Feminine Plural
thrix: hair The proverbial unit of the negligible. JFB points to Luke 21:18, 1 Samuel 14:45 and Acts 27:34, where the formula “not a hair shall fall or perish” is a promise of preservation. Read against those, this verse says something subtler: not that no hair will be lost, but that none is unaccounted for. Verse 28 has already conceded that the body may be killed.
τῆςtēsofG3588
√ ὁ — the (sometimes to be supplied, at others omitted, in English idiom)ArticleGenitive Feminine Singular
ὑμῶνhymōnyourG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounGenitive 2nd Person Plural
κεφαλῆςkephalēsheadG2776
√ κεφαλή — the head (as the part most readily taken hold of), literally or figurativelyNounGenitive Feminine Singular
εἰσίνeisinareG1510
√ εἰμί — I exist (used only when emphatic)VerbPresent Indicative Active3rd Person Plural
πᾶσαιpasaiallG3956
√ πᾶς — all, any, every, the wholeAdjectiveNominative Feminine Plural
pas: all, every, the whole Feminine plural, agreeing with the hairs: the inventory is exhaustive, not representative.
ἠριθμημέναιērithmēmenainumberedG705
√ ἀριθμέω — to enumerate or countVerbPerfect Participle Middle or PassiveNominative Feminine Plural
arithmeō: to enumerate, to count A rare verb (3 verses). Its other New Testament appearance of note is Revelation 7:9, where the redeemed multitude is the thing no one could number. The two uses stand in exact counterpoise: what man cannot count God has already counted, down to the hairs of one head in the crowd.
31

So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Berean Standard Bible · CC0

Greek — tap a word ↓

oun phobeisthe mē hymeis diapherete pollōn strouthiōn

Word by word7 · parsed
οὖνounSoG3767
√ οὖν — (adverbially) certainly, or (conjunctionally) accordinglyConjunction
oun: therefore, accordingly The same connective that opened verse 26, closing the bracket. Everything between the two is the ground of one repeated command.
φοβεῖσθεphobeisthedo not be afraidG5399
√ φοβέω — to frighten, iVerbPresent Imperative Middle or Passive2nd Person Plural
phobeō: to fear The third and last sounding of the keyword. The unit's shape is now visible: do not fear them (26), fear him (28), do not fear (31). Fear is not removed but relocated, and the relocation is what disarms the middle term. Gill and Poole both read the paragraph this way, Poole adding that nothing so drives a slavish fear of man out of the heart as a right apprehension of the power of God.
μὴmē. . .G3361
√ μή — (adverb) not, (conjunction) lestAdverb
ὑμεῖςhymeisyouG4771
√ σύ — thouPersonal / Possessive PronounNominative 2nd Person Plural
διαφέρετεdiaphereteare worth moreG1308
√ διαφέρω — to bear through, iVerbPresent Indicative Active2nd Person Plural
diapherō: to bear through, to differ, to be worth more The argument is comparative and therefore modest. Christ does not say the disciples will not fall; he says they are not of the same account as what falls unnoticed. The Pulpit Commentary observes the same form of argument at Matthew 12:12, where a man is worth more than a sheep.
πολλῶνpollōnthan manyG4183
√ πολύς — (singular) much (in any respect) or (plural) manyAdjectiveGenitive Neuter Plural
στρουθίωνstrouthiōnsparrowsG4765
√ στρουθίον — a little sparrowNounGenitive Neuter Plural
strouthion: a little sparrow Repeated from verse 29 to close the figure. Gill notes the comparison is deliberately absurd: it would take a great multitude of sparrows to be named alongside a single man at all.

The verse-by-verse work is done. What follows gathers the whole unit. All three layers below are machine-generated (⚙). Weigh them; they have no authority.

⚙

Grand Commentary — the unit, read whole

synthesis · verify

AI synthesis — woven from the public-domain voices above and the original text; generated and fallible.

i. The cover is temporary — 10:26

The paragraph opens with a reason, not a reassurance: οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστιν κεκαλυμμένον, nothing stands covered. The perfect participle matters. Something has been draped over the truth and the drape is still there, which is exactly the disciples' complaint; the future passive ἀποκαλυφθήσεται says the drape comes off, and says nothing about when. The commentators divide precisely there. Gill holds there is no need to refer this to the great day of account and reads it chiefly of the seasons in which the gospel breaks out into the open. JFB carries it to the final assize and cites 1 Corinthians 4:5. Cambridge lays out two possibilities at once, a day that will expose the disciple's own disloyalty and a day that will expose the unreality of what now terrifies him. The Pulpit Commentary rejects both and reads the verse as a charge against concealment: fear them not so as to conceal your faith and principles. Maclaren, on his own literary reading of how Matthew assembles sayings, thinks the horizon of these verses reaches to the end, the final revelation of all hidden things. ⚙ The Greek is hospitable to all four because it supplies a certainty and withholds a date. What it will not support is the one thing fear wants: that the cover might stay on.

ii. From the ear to the roof — 10:27

Verse 27 turns the certainty into a command, and does it with four spatial contrasts: σκοτίᾳ against φωτί, εἰς τὸ οὖς against ἐπὶ τῶν δωμάτων. Cambridge, following Lightfoot, hears behind the ear-phrase the synagogue practice in which the master whispered into the ear of an interpreter who repeated it aloud, and Gill documents the custom at length from the Talmud, including the complaint that an interpreter sometimes delivered a different sense from the one whispered to him. The Pulpit Commentary judges Lightfoot's identification possible but prefers to read it as a common figure for secret instruction, citing the Babylonian Berachoth and the Old Testament idiom of uncovering the ear. Ellicott takes the darkness as Christ's own pedagogy, parables and dark sayings and whispered hints by which he led them on to truth as they were able to bear it, and reads the housetop as the natural figure for fullest boldness. Benson supplies the physical fact: low flat roofs really were preached from, and he passes on Hegesippus' story of James the Just set on the temple to address the passover crowds. Geneva glosses the housetops simply, openly, and in the highest places. ⚙ The rare noun δῶμα is worth holding. In Matthew 24:17, Mark 13:15 and Luke 17:31 the roof is where a man is when catastrophe arrives and he must not go back down; in Acts 10:9 it is where Peter is when the sheet comes down. Here alone it is a platform. The one architectural feature associated everywhere else with flight and vision is turned into a pulpit, and that is the shape of the command: the exposed place becomes the preaching place.

iii. Two fears and one Gehenna — 10:28

The centre of the unit is a grammatical hinge the English cannot carry. The Pulpit Commentary sets it out: φοβεῖσθε ἀπό with the genitive is a Hebraism for shrinking, cowardly dread; φοβεῖσθε with the accusative is concentration of regard. Two different motions of the soul are named by one verb, and one is forbidden while the other is commanded intensely. Christ also concedes the persecutors everything they claim. Gill: this is the utmost of their efforts, and Luke's parallel adds that afterward they have no more that they can do. Nothing here says the disciples live. Then the verbs change: men ἀποκτεῖναι, God ἀπολέσαι, and Benson notes the second word also carries the sense of torment, while the Pulpit Commentary, quoting Agar Beet, records that the class of words denotes utter and hopeless ruin without settling whether the ruined object ceases to exist or continues a worthless existence. The referent of “the One who is able” is genuinely disputed in the brief: Cambridge leaves it open between God and Satan, noting Clement of Rome's apparent allusion; Ellicott refutes the Satan reading on two grounds, that Scripture nowhere bids us fear the devil but resist him (Ephesians 6:11; James 4:7), and that James 4:12 speaks in nearly identical words of the one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy. The Pulpit Commentary agrees that the reference is of course to God. Gill will not even let the comparative stand: rather, he says, means that God is to be feared not chiefly but solely, and he observes that the Arabic, Ethiopic and Munster's Hebrew Gospel omit the word. JFB reads the clause as decisive proof of a hell for the body as well as the soul; Barnes draws the same inference in reverse, that the bodies of the wicked must be raised in order to be so punished. ⚙ Both inferences run ahead of the sentence, which names soul, body and the valley, and stops. And γεέννῃ is not a doctrine but an address: Strong's gives the word as the valley of the son of Hinnom, a transliterated Hebrew place name, and Cambridge insists on rendering it literally, in Gehenna. What later tradition has added to that valley is not in the lexicon entry and is not claimed here.

iv. The price of a sparrow, the count of a head — 10:29-31

The argument descends deliberately. Barnes names the two steps: God takes care of the smallest and least valuable of birds, and God numbers even the hairs of the head. Ellicott prices the coin, an assarion, the tenth part of a denarius and not the kodrantēs of Mark 12:42, and observes that Luke's five for two makes the bird cheaper still; JFB notes that the fifth sparrow is thrown in free. Barnes, quoting Thomson, and the Pulpit Commentary, quoting Tristram, both describe the real trade in these birds, strung on skewers and sold as a nuisance. The pivot is a rare preposition. The Pulpit Commentary distinguishes ἄνευ from chōris with care: the latter would deny physical connexion and imply that God causes the bird's death, whereas ἄνευ is only negative and implies that the death is not outside his knowledge and care. BSB's “apart from the will of your Father” supplies “will,” and so decides the question the Greek leaves open. Gill and Poole do decide it, Gill concluding that nothing comes by chance and that the sparrow is not shot without the will of God, Poole that if the disciples die in their testimony it should be by God's ordering. Then verse 30: ἠριθμημέναι εἰσίν, a perfect periphrastic, the counting done and standing done, which the Pulpit Commentary glosses “perhaps long since” and Gill presses into a doctrine of decree. ⚙ Here the honest reading has to resist the comfortable one. JFB rightly points to 1 Samuel 14:45, Luke 21:18 and Acts 27:34, where not a hair falling is a promise of rescue. But this verse does not say no hair will fall. It says every hair is counted, which is a different and harder consolation, and it stands three sentences after Christ has granted that the body may be killed. Ellicott puts it as gently as it can honestly be put: they are not at any moment of their lives to think that they are uncared for by their Father. The close, πολλῶν στρουθίων διαφέρετε ὑμεῖς, is comparative and not protective, and JFB is right that its power lies in its simplicity.

Read under Sola Scriptura — this tool’s own fallible reading (⚙)

⚙ Offered as fallible and open to correction. Read as one argument rather than six sayings, this paragraph does not abolish fear; it redirects it, and the redirection is what makes courage possible. Verse 26 removes the incentive to hide by declaring concealment temporary: a strategy of secrecy is the one strategy certain to be overturned. Verse 27 therefore turns the whisper into a herald's cry, and it is worth noticing that the disciples are given nothing of their own to say; κηρύξατε is the office of a crier repeating his lord's words, which is why their safety is not the point. Verse 28 then names the worst honestly. Christ concedes the killing before he comforts, and he does not promise that the body survives. What he does is show that the fear men are asking the disciples to feel is a fear of the lesser power, and Gill is right that the comparative in effect collapses: once God is genuinely feared, there is no fear left over for anyone else. Verses 29 to 31 supply the reason that fear of God is not terror: the God who can destroy is called, in the same breath, your Father, and his attention reaches to a bird worth half a farthing and to hairs no one has ever bothered to count. But the text is more careful than its usual comforters. ἄνευ says the sparrow does not fall unnoticed; it does not say God shoots it. The perfect participle says the hairs stand counted; it does not say none will be lost. The comparative says the disciples are of more account than many sparrows; it does not say they will not fall. Everything promised here is knowledge, valuation and relationship, and nothing promised is immunity, which is exactly what one would expect from a Master who is on his way to Gehenna's own valley and who told them in verse 26 that they were only suffering what he suffered first.

Not one promise here is immunity; every promise here is that the fall is seen. (This line is the tool's own synthesis, not Scripture.)

⚙

Canonical Threads — out to the whole of Scripture

cross-refs · verify

AI-generated connections. Each carries a verification badge with a recorded basis; contested links are flagged.

The Lukan twin: two sparrows for an assarion verbal / quotation: confirmed

Luke carries the same saying with the arithmetic altered: five sparrows for two assaria rather than two for one. JFB draws the conclusion that the purchaser who took two farthings' worth got one bird thrown in, so that the Lukan form presses the cheapness further; Ellicott makes the same observation. The Verifier confirms the verbal link by two genuinely rare lexemes. Luke 12:7 continues with the hairs and the comparative, and shares φοβέω and στρουθίον with Matthew 10:31. The Pulpit Commentary notes a real difference: Luke's clause is “not one of them is forgotten in the sight of God,” which speaks of the bird in life, where Matthew's speaks of its falling.

Luke 12:6 · Luke 12:7

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G787 ἀσσάριον (in 2 vv, its only other occurrence) and G4765 στρουθίον (in 4 vv), plus G4453 πωλέω (in 20 vv) at Luke 12:6, and G5399 φοβέω with G4765 στρουθίον at Luke 12:7. Both refs are New Testament, so the shared Strong's numbers are a legitimate verbal basis; this is a synoptic parallel of one dominical saying, not a citation of one book by another.

Housetops and the ear, reversed in Luke verbal / quotation: confirmed

Luke 12:3 uses the same three images, darkness, the ear, the housetops, but the Pulpit Commentary observes that the sense runs the other way: in Matthew it is a charge to the disciples to proclaim publicly what Christ tells them privately, whereas in Luke it is a statement that what they say privately shall be proclaimed publicly. The overlap of vocabulary is exact and the theology is inverted, which is itself instructive about how the tradition is reported. The Verifier records the shared lexemes.

Luke 12:3

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexemes G1430 δῶμα (in 7 vv), G4653 σκοτία (in 13 vv), G3775 οὖς (in 34 vv). δῶμα is rare enough to carry the link. Both refs are New Testament. Tiered verbal as a parallel wording, not as a quotation of one text by another; the Pulpit Commentary notes the meanings are reversed.

The roof: where you flee, where you see, where you preach structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ δῶμα appears seven times in the Greek New Testament, and six of them are not about preaching. In the flight oracle the man on the housetop must not go down to take anything from his house (Matthew 24:17; Mark 13:15; Luke 17:31); in Acts 10:9 Peter goes up on the housetop to pray and the sheet descends. The roof is the exposed place, the place of departure and of disclosure from above. Matthew 10:27 alone makes it a platform for speech. Benson records that the flat Syrian roofs were in fact used for preaching, and Geneva that they were built to be walked on (citing Acts 10:9); the Pulpit Commentary adds that an announcement made there spreads through the town at once. The link is lexical and structural, not a quotation.

Matthew 24:17 · Mark 13:15 · Luke 17:31 · Acts 10:9

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G1430 δῶμα (in 7 vv) at all four refs. A real verbal link within a shared motif of the exposed rooftop; no quotation is claimed, so the tier is thematic rather than verbal.

What covers and what is covered structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ The verb of verse 26, καλύπτω, occurs in only seven verses, and the company it keeps sets the register of Christ's promise. A lamp is not covered with a vessel but set on a stand (Luke 8:16), and Poole cites the very next verse, Luke 8:17, as one of the places where our Saviour used this proverbial speech. Paul says that if his gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing (2 Corinthians 4:3), which pairs kalyptō with apollymi, the very verb of Matthew 10:28. Peter says love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8), a covering meant to stay. And on the road to the cross the condemned beg the mountains to cover them (Luke 23:30), which is the one covering this text refuses to grant. Matthew 8:24 uses the word of waves covering the boat while Christ sleeps.

Luke 8:16 · 2 Corinthians 4:3 · 1 Peter 4:8 · Luke 23:30

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G2572 καλύπτω (in 7 vv) at all four refs, with G5457 φῶς and G3762 οὐδείς also shared at Luke 8:16, G622 ἀπόλλυμι at 2 Corinthians 4:3, and G4098 πίπτω at Luke 23:30. A genuine verbal link across a motif of covering and uncovering; deliberately tiered thematic because no text here quotes another.

Counted, and beyond counting structural / thematic: confirmed

⚙ ἀριθμέω is a rare verb, standing in only three verses. At Matthew 10:30 the hairs of one head stand already numbered; at Revelation 7:9 John sees a great multitude which no one was able to number. The two statements are exact counterparts: the innumerable crowd is composed of heads whose hairs are individually counted, and the God who cannot be exhausted by the multitude is not defeated by the detail either. Gill reads the Matthew clause as the strongest possible statement of God's exquisite care in providence, and Barnes that God has fixed the number and does not think it beneath him. ⚙ The pairing with Revelation is my own reading of a lexical coincidence, not a claim that either text cites the other.

Revelation 7:9

basis: Verifier: shared Greek lexeme G705 ἀριθμέω (in 3 vv), with G3762 οὐδείς and G1410 δύναμαι also shared. The verb is rare enough to justify a verbal tier, but it is deliberately downgraded to thematic because no quotation, citation or allusion is claimed in either direction; the link is a lexical counterpoint noticed by the machine.

Not a hair shall fall: the Old Testament formula behind verse 30 structural / thematic: confirmed

JFB, commenting on Matthew 10:30, points the reader to Luke 21:18 and, for the language itself, to 1 Samuel 14:45 and Acts 27:34. In 1 Samuel the people swear that not one hair of Jonathan's head shall fall to the ground; Paul uses the same formula to promise the ship's company that not a hair shall perish; Luke 21:18 places it in Christ's own mouth. Gill notes independently that the phrase was proverbial for suffering no hurt at all. ⚙ Matthew 10:30 sounds like that formula and is not it. The idiom promises that nothing will be lost; this verse promises that nothing is uncounted, three sentences after granting that the body may be killed. The difference is the whole weight of the passage.

1 Samuel 14:45 · Luke 21:18 · Acts 27:34

basis: Basis is the commentators' own citation: JFB at Matthew 10:30 names 1 Samuel 14:45, Acts 27:34 and Luke 21:18, and Gill names 1 Samuel 14:45. The link crosses Testaments (Greek Matthew to Hebrew 1 Samuel), so no shared Strong's number can be adduced and a verbal tier is impossible; the shared element is a fixed idiom about a falling hair, and the Verifier returned no lexeme basis for these refs.

The proverb's doubtful pedigree: Mark 4:22 and Luke 8:17 flagged: verify source

Poole treats “nothing covered that shall not be revealed” as a proverbial speech used by our Saviour on more occasions than this, and lists Mark 4:22, Luke 8:17 and Luke 12:2. The Pulpit Commentary is more cautious and raises the real question: though the two sayings are probably distinct, it is very possible that one may have been modified from the other in being reported. Barnes goes further and supposes the sentence was already a proverb among the Jews before Christ used it. ⚙ Since the relation between these forms is precisely what is disputed, no confident claim of quotation or dependence can be made here, and the reader should treat any such claim, including a harmonising one, as unsettled.

Mark 4:22 · Luke 8:17 · Luke 12:2

basis: Provenance contested in the sources themselves: Poole and Pulpit both name these as parallels, but Pulpit doubts whether they are the same saying or one reported form of another, and Barnes suggests a pre-Christian Jewish proverb. The Verifier returned no computed lexeme basis for Mark 4:22 or Luke 8:17 in this unit's candidates, so the connection rests on commentator assertion alone.

⚙Christ in the Unittypology · verify

AI-generated reading; weigh it against the text.

The Master who was covered first ancient/widely-held

Ellicott reads the opening command as looking both backward and forward: why should they be afraid when they were only suffering what their Master Himself had suffered, and when they could look forward to the open publicity of His triumph. That sets the logic of the paragraph in Christ rather than in the disciples. The pattern of verses 26 and 27, a thing covered and then uncovered, a word spoken in darkness and then heralded from the roof, is first of all his own career: taught privately, as Ellicott notes from John 16:12, only what they were able to bear; condemned in a night trial; and then proclaimed publicly. ⚙ The disciples are not being asked to adopt a policy of boldness. They are being told that they stand inside a sequence already running, in which the covering is the temporary phase. Maclaren says the same in his own key: Christ had no dreams of swift success, but realised the long, hard fight to which He was summoning His disciples. That the apostolic preaching is the uncovering of what Christ taught in private is the plain reading of Ellicott, Poole, Gill, Barnes and JFB alike.

Matthew 10:26 · Matthew 10:27 · 1 Corinthians 4:5

The One who is able: the disputed referent ancient/widely-held

Cambridge leaves “him which is able to destroy” open between God and Satan, and records that Clement of Rome, with a probable reference to this passage, wrote that we ought not to fear man but God. Ellicott closes the question: Scripture nowhere teaches us to fear the devil but to resist and defy him (Ephesians 6:11; James 4:7), and James 4:12 uses almost identical language, one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, where there cannot be a shadow of doubt as to the meaning. The Pulpit Commentary concurs, noting that Luke's parallel has authority where Matthew has bare power. ⚙ That the referent is God is the ancient and widely-held reading, attested here by Ellicott, the Pulpit Commentary and Clement of Rome through Cambridge. Ellicott adds the qualification that keeps the verse from becoming a caricature: we are not told to think of God as in any case willing to destroy, but only as having the power to inflict that destruction where all offers of mercy and all calls to righteousness have been rejected.

Matthew 10:28 · James 4:12 · Ephesians 6:11

The sparrow that fell novel

⚙ This is my own reading, offered to be tested rather than relied on. The unit's comfort has a shape that only the cross fills. Christ concedes that the body may be killed (v. 28) and in the same paragraph insists that not one bird falls unnoticed by the Father (v. 29). He does not resolve the tension, and Poole states the only form of resolution the text supports: if they should die in their testimony, it should be by God's ordering. ⚙ Matthew's own narrative later supplies the case. The Speaker of these words was himself killed, in the manner he has just conceded, and his falling was neither unnoticed nor outside the Father's knowledge and care, which is exactly what the negative preposition ἄνευ asserts and all that it asserts. If that is right, then verse 31 is not a promise that the disciple will not fall but a promise that he will not fall the way a nuisance bird falls, unregarded and unpriced. Gill's confident inference, that their lives could not be taken until their work was done, over-reads the comparative; the martyrdoms the church actually suffered are the test he did not apply. I mark this reading novel: no commentator in this unit draws the line from the sparrow to the cross, though Ellicott's and Maclaren's framing of the disciples as suffering what their Master suffered points the same way.

Matthew 10:28 · Matthew 10:29 · Matthew 10:31

Apparatus & Provenance

The biblical text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), public domain (CC0). Hebrew/Greek text, transliteration, morphology and Strong’s are transcribed from the Berean interlinear (CC0) + Strong’s lexicons (PD); the literal renderings, divergence notes, word notes and all synthesis are this tool’s own work (⚙) — fallible; verify them.

Named voices, quoted verbatim from public-domain works:

  • Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible (1834)
  • Alexander Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (c. 1905)
  • Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, — (1880s)
  • Charles Ellicott, Commentary for English Readers (1878)
  • Geneva Study Bible, Marginal Notes (1599)
  • Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory (1871)
  • John Gill, Exposition of the Entire Bible (1746–63)
  • Joseph Benson, Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1810s)
  • Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706)
  • Matthew Poole, Annotations upon the Holy Bible (1685)
  • The Pulpit Commentary, Spence & Exell, eds. (1880s)

Text. The unit runs Matthew 10:26 to 10:31, six verses, all Greek, all with full interlinear data. The Berean interlinear ordering in the brief follows English sequence at several points (for example the negative Μὴ is listed after the verb in vv. 26, 28 and 31, and οὐ is listed last in v. 26); the literal renderings above restore the Greek order, and the note indices remain those of the brief.

Translation. Three BSB smoothings are worth flagging together, because each decides a question the Greek leaves open: “apart from the will of your Father” in v. 29 supplies the word “will,” which is absent from ἄνευ; “what is whispered in your ear” in v. 27 supplies “whispered,” which is an inference from rabbinic custom rather than a word in the text; and “are all numbered” in v. 30 renders a perfect periphrastic as a simple present.

Variants and readings recorded in the sources. The Pulpit Commentary notes that Westcott and Hort read μὴ φοβηθῆτε ἀπό in v. 28 with B and a few other authorities, and that Origen and Chrysostom read “fall into the snare” at v. 29 rather than “fall on the ground.” Gill records that the word rather in v. 28 is omitted in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions and in Munster's Hebrew Gospel. Some copies at v. 29 add “which is in heaven” after “your Father.” None of these has been used to alter the reading given above.

What is uncertain. The date of the uncovering in v. 26 (Gill against JFB and Ellicott); the referent of “him which is able” in v. 28 (Cambridge leaves it open, Ellicott and Pulpit close it on God); the value of the assarion (Ellicott's tenth of a denarius against the Geneva gloss of a weight of silver, which appear to describe different things); and whether Matthew 10:26 and Mark 4:22 / Luke 8:17 are one saying or two, which the Pulpit Commentary expressly leaves unresolved and which is flagged in the threads above.

Sources. Matthew Henry's entry is a single block covering 10:16 to 10:42, so his remarks are not verse-specific; his voice is anchored once, at v. 28. Poole's entries at 10:29 and 10:30 are cross-references to his note on 10:31, where his substantive comment on all three verses stands, and he is anchored there. Maclaren's exposition covers 10:16 to 10:31 and is capped in the brief; only its opening portion was available, and his literary claim about Matthew's arrangement of sayings is his judgment, not a datum. Barnes at 10:29 quotes Thomson's The Land and the Book, and the Pulpit Commentary at 10:29 quotes Tristram in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; both descriptions of the sparrow trade are nineteenth-century travellers' observations, not first-century evidence. The rabbinic parallels adduced by Gill and the Pulpit Commentary (the Jerusalem Talmud's tale of R. Simon ben Jochai and the fowler, the Baba Bathra passage on the hairs) are later than the Gospel and illustrate the idiom rather than establish a source.

Machine layer. Every ⚙ paragraph above is fallible synthesis. The thread bases are the Verifier's computed shared lexemes, reproduced as given; where no computed basis existed (1 Samuel 14:45, Mark 4:22, Luke 8:17) the thread says so and is tiered accordingly. No cross-Testament link here is tiered verbal, since Greek and Hebrew lexemes cannot share a Strong's number.

✦ = human, public-domain source, quoted and named. ⚙ = machine synthesis, to be verified. Flagged cross-references are left visible on purpose — the verifier working in the open. “Search the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” (Acts 17:11)