παρεδόθη, (paredothe) in Matthew 4:12: Verb Third Person Singular Aorist Passive Indicative
παρεδόθη, (paredothe) in Matthew 4:12
Textual Witness
The witness reads παρεδόθη in Matthew 4:12, in the sequence ὅτι Ἰωάννης παρεδόθη, ἀνεχώρησεν.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The grammar highlights John as the recipient of the action and lets the narrative use that event as the trigger for Jesus' withdrawal.
How To Communicate It
For readers, the form signals a reported event already completed: John was handed over, which helps explain why Jesus withdraws in the next clause.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Passive voice here identifies John as the one acted upon, but it does not by itself name the actor.
- Do not turn verbal tense, voice, or mood into claims the sentence does not actually state.
What Does The Label Mean?
Verb: the form presents an action or event, here the act of being handed over or betrayed.
Aorist: commonly views the action as a whole event. It should not be treated as automatically punctiliar or automatically past in every context.
Passive: presents the subject as receiving or being affected by the action.
Indicative: presents the verbal idea as an assertion or statement in the clause.
Third person: the form speaks about someone or something rather than directly as I/we or you.
Not applicable: this verb form is not using noun case to mark its sentence role.
Singular: the form is third person singular, matching one referenced subject in the clause.
Not applicable: this verb form does not use grammatical gender to make its point.
What The Form Does In This Verse
Ἰωάννης
The verb is the predicate of the ὅτι clause and reports what happened to John in the narrative.
It states that John was handed over, giving the reason Jesus withdrew to Galilee in the surrounding sentence.
It does not by itself name the agent, define the manner, or require the reader to decide more than the context supports.
How Much The Form Matters Here
Moderate: The aorist passive verb reports the event that prompts Jesus' withdrawal to Galilee.
Passive predicate in the reported event. states what happened to John in the narrative. Attached to the report concerning John. Governed by the hoti clause explaining what Jesus heard. The passive voice marks John as acted upon, while the verse does not name the agent in this form.
What happened to John in the reported event? The verb reports that John was handed over, which explains the narrative movement that follows.
Direct: The passive form directly supports a rendering such as "John was handed over" or "John was arrested," depending on translation policy.
The passive voice shows John receives the action, but the agent and full circumstances come from context, not from the morphology alone. The aorist reports the event as a whole and should not be turned into a once-for-all theological claim.
Aorist means once-for-all: The aorist presents the event without itself proving a special once-for-all nuance. passive voice names the agent: The passive marks John as receiving the action; the agent must come from context or another source.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads παρεδόθη in Matthew 4:12, in the sequence ὅτι Ἰωάννης παρεδόθη, ἀνεχώρησεν.
The lemma παραδίδωμι means to hand over, deliver, or betray, and the verse uses that core sense for John.
The passive form presents John as the one who underwent the handing over, while the context supplies no explicit agent in the clause.
The sentence links John's being handed over with Jesus' withdrawal, so the report advances the narrative setting for Jesus' move to Galilee.
Within Matthew, the wording fits the broader pattern of Jesus' mission unfolding amid conflict and surrender, without forcing extra detail into this verse.
In teaching and translation, the form can be rendered as was handed over, with care not to add an explicit agent or unsupported process.
Do not infer the precise agent, legal process, or all theological implications from the verb form alone.