Matthew 4
Forty days in the wilderness and three temptations. He withdraws to Galilee, begins to proclaim, and calls four fishermen.
Slanderer renders διάβολος (diabolos), one who throws accusations across; this edition does not use “devil”. Tested (πειράζω, peirazō) is also “tempted” — Greek holds both.
Why this rendering
Matt.4.1 Observation
Syntactic observation
Two books write the same scene with different verbs. Matthew 4:1 has ἀνήχθη — aorist passive, he was led up; Mark 1:12 has τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτὸν ἐκβάλλει — present active, the Spirit throws him out. In Mark the Spirit is subject and the verb carries force (it is the verb of driving out demons); in Matthew Jesus becomes the subject of a passive and the Spirit is pushed back into a ὑπό-phrase, marked as agent. The tempter's name divides too — Matthew uses ὁ διάβολος — Greek, from διαβάλλω, to slander — four times in this chapter (1, 5, 8, 11), and διάβολος never occurs in Mark at all — Mark uses only σατανᾶς (1:13 included). Counted across the four Gospels it stands at Matthew 6, Luke 5, John 3 and Mark 0: Mark alone is without it. Matthew uses both names, and in this scene adds a third designation at v.3, ὁ πειράζων, the one testing. And the purpose is stated by infinitive: πειρασθῆναι — led up in order to be tested.
Rendering options · 3
Basis διάβολος is Greek, from διαβάλλω, to throw across, to slander — not a foreign word like Korban, Gehenna or magi, so it falls outside the four Gospels's transliteration rule and is rendered by sense. Absent from Mark, it takes a rendering distinct from σατανᾶς.
Basis Uses the conventional rendering.
Rejected Korean 마귀 is etymologically unrelated and reads as a proper name, losing the sense of διαβάλλω. English devil descends from Latin diabolus and is the same word — the break happens only in Korean.
Basis Leaves the word as it stands.
Rejected Transliteration in the four Gospels has applied only to words the authors brought in from another language (Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew place-names). διάβολος is Greek, and transliterating it would break the rule.
Lost in translation
The word comes from διαβάλλω, to slander, so slanderer carries the sense — but not that it had already hardened toward a proper name. And that the word is absent from Mark shows in translation only if the renderings are kept apart.
Forty days and forty nights — this book adds the nights; Mark 1:13 does not.
If you are the Son of God — the Greek condition assumes it is so, not that it is doubted.
Word here is ῥῆμα (rhēma), not λόγος (logos). English uses “word” for both — recorded as a loss.
Pinnacle renders πτερύγιον (pterygion), a “little wing” — what part of the temple is meant is not known.
The slanderer quotes scripture too, and the quotation is accurate.
Again it stands written — the answer is another quotation, not an argument.
A very high mountain — the book puts its great scenes on mountains, and ends on one at 28:16.
Worship renders προσκυνέω (proskyneō), which is bowing down as much as adoring.
Go away, Satan — the same words are said to Peter at 16:23.
Why this rendering
Matt.4.10 Observation
Syntactic observation
Ὕπαγε, Σατανᾶ — go away, Satan. Matthew uses the same address again at 16:23, to Peter, and there ὀπίσω μου is attached: Ὕπαγε ὀπίσω μου, Σατανᾶ, go behind me, Satan. Mark 8:33 has ὀπίσω μου as well. So Matthew distinguishes the two places — to the tempter, simply go; to Peter, go behind. ὀπίσω μου is the phrase marking the disciple's place at Matthew 4:19 (come behind me) and 16:24 (if anyone wants to come behind me), so the Peter of 16:23 is sent back to that place while the Satan of 4:10 is not called to it. The presence or absence of one phrase divides the two scenes. The citation is you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only, setting προσκυνέω and λατρεύω side by side. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀Ὕπαγε,).
Rendering options · 2
Basis Reflects the presence and absence of the phrase; rendering both places alike erases the distinction Matthew makes.
Basis Levels both to the familiar phrase.
Rejected The phrase is not at 4:10. Supplying it adds words the text does not have and calls Satan to the disciple's place — precisely the implication Matthew avoids.
Lost in translation
One leans toward cultic service, the other toward prostration. Worship and serve carry some of it, but the two grains blur.
Were serving is the table-verb (διακονέω, diakoneō) of 8:15 and 20:28.
Handed over is the verb used of Judas later — this book uses it of John first, as Mark does.
The move is given as a fulfilment, and verse 14 says so.
The formula of 1:22 returns.
Galilee of the nations — the quotation is Isaiah 9:1–2.
Shadow of death is one Greek word (σκιά, skia, with death in the genitive), and it is kept as two.
Why this rendering
Matt.4.16 Observation
Syntactic observation
This verse supplies data that settles one of the four Gospels's open questions. Greek has two words for darkness (σκοτία and σκότος), and the four authors use them in different proportions: John has σκοτία eight times (1:5 twice, 6:17, 8:12, 12:35 twice, 12:46, 20:1) against σκότος once (3:19); Matthew has σκοτία twice (4:16, 10:27) against σκότος six times (6:23 twice, 8:12, 22:13, 25:30, 27:45); Luke has σκοτία once (12:3) against σκότος four times (1:79, 11:35, 22:53, 23:44); Mark has no σκοτία and σκότος once (15:33). Only John leans hard to the first word; the other three all lean to the second. This verse is one of Matthew's two σκοτία places, and it stands inside a quotation. Later in the same verse comes σκιά, shadow — darkness, shadow and light gathered into one sentence. σκιά occurs three times in the four Gospels (Matt 4:16, Mark 4:32, Luke 1:79), and Luke 1:79 uses the same phrase found here, the shadow of death. The verbs divide too: the people φῶς εἶδεν, saw a light (active), while for those sitting in the shadow φῶς ἀνέτειλεν, a light rose — the root of the star that was rising at 2:2 and 9. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀σκοτίᾳ ⸂φῶς εἶδεν⸃).
Rendering options · 2
Basis The two words are distributed unevenly by author, so only distinct renderings let the distribution be counted. If John 1:5's σκοτία and Matthew 27:45's σκότος look like one word, the fact that John uses his eight times disappears.
Basis The senses overlap, so one word serves.
Rejected What overlaps is sense, not vocabulary. This edition treats distribution as data, and covering two words with one rendering prevents the data from existing. All twenty-nine versions compared cover them with one word — but none of them aims to show distribution.
Lost in translation
The lexica describe σκοτία as the later, more colloquial form, but our data cannot fix a difference in sense. We separate the renderings not because we have separated the meanings but so the words can be counted — and we say so here.
Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has come near — the very words John used at 3:2.
Casting-net (ἀμφίβληστρον, amphiblēstron) is a named kind of net, used once in the four Gospels.
Why this rendering
Matt.4.18 Observation
Syntactic observation
The net divides into two words. What Simon and Andrew cast in v.18 is an ἀμφίβληστρον; what is left and mended in vv.20 and 21 is a δίκτυον. ἀμφίβληστρον occurs once in all four Gospels — here. Mark 1:18 and 19 both have δίκτυον, and δίκτυον itself occurs twelve times in the four Gospels (2 in Matthew, 2 in Mark, 4 in Luke, 4 in John). Different words, different objects, according to the lexica: the first a circular casting-net, the second a net in general. Matthew uses the casting-net for the casting and the general word for the leaving and mending. The call in v.19 is Δεῦτε ὀπίσω μου — word for word Mark 1:17, and the very phrase withheld from Satan at 4:10. In ἁλιεῖς ἀνθρώπων, fishers of men, the genitive names what is caught.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Two words where Matthew has two. Mark uses only one, so Mark 1:18-19 stay nets.
Basis One scene, one word.
Rejected It covers over a change the text makes, and erases the difference from Mark: that only Matthew uses two words.
Lost in translation
ἀμφίβληστρον carries throwing around in its root. Casting-net gets some of the motion, but not that the throwing lives inside the noun.
Fishers of men — the Greek word here is ἄνθρωποι (anthrōpoi), people of any kind.
At once — this book keeps Mark's speed in the calling scenes.
Mending (καταρτίζω, katartizō) is putting a thing back in order.
Their father — this book does not name the hirelings Mark 1:20 leaves with him.
Weakness (μαλακία, malakia) is set beside disease; this edition keeps the two apart.
Moonstruck renders σεληνιάζομαι (selēniazomai), built on the word for moon — English “lunatic” is built the same way.
Why this rendering
Matt.4.24 Observation
Syntactic observation
In the list of those healed stands σεληνιαζομένους — a participle from σελήνη, the moon; literally, those moonstruck. It occurs twice in Matthew (4:24, 17:15) and nowhere in Mark, Luke or John — in the four Gospels the word is Matthew's alone. At 17:15 a father uses this word of his son's condition, while the same scene at Mark 9:17-18 describes it as a spirit that makes him mute — two authors framing the same symptoms differently. Its position in the list is worth noting: between the demon-possessed (δαιμονιζομένους) and the paralysed (παραλυτικούς), it is fixed on neither the side of spirit nor the side of body. συνεχομένους, held together, gives the picture of illness and torment gripping a person. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀συνεχομένους,).
Rendering options · 2
Basis Keeps the moon inside the word. The text does not classify the condition, so the rendering does not either.
Basis Renders it as a modern diagnosis.
Rejected It makes the translation issue a diagnosis. The text hangs the name on the moon and says no more; and once a modern diagnosis covers it, the fact that Mark and Matthew describe the same boy differently at 17:15 stops being visible.
Decapolis names a group of ten cities and is kept as sound.