αὐτῶν. (auton) in Matthew 1:21: Genitive Plural Masculine
αὐτῶν. (auton) in Matthew 1:21
Textual Witness
The witness reads αὐτῶν in the closing phrase, and the surrounding clause explicitly says he will save the people from their sins.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The form helps the reader hear the sentence as about a particular people whose sins are being removed from them, while the main force still comes from the verb and the clause as a whole.
How To Communicate It
In translation and explanation, the pronoun can be rendered simply as their, with the context showing that it refers back to the people Jesus will save.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Grammatical gender here is formal and should not be turned into a theological gender claim.
- The pronoun marks relation and reference, but the passage's meaning comes from the whole clause.
What Does The Label Mean?
Pronoun: the word points to an already identified referent rather than naming it directly, and here it functions as a genitive pronoun.
Genitive: the form usually marks a relationship such as possession, source, or association, and in context it limits the noun phrase it follows.
Plural: the form is grammatically plural in this occurrence, referring to more than one person or to a plural group as the context allows.
Masculine: the form is grammatically masculine, which is a formal category in Greek and does not by itself make a theological claim about the referent.
What The Form Does In This Verse
τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν
The pronoun follows the preposition phrase and most naturally belongs with it as the genitive complement that completes the sense of source or separation.
It identifies the owners or associated persons of the sins, so the phrase means their sins in the flow of the sentence.
It does not change the meaning of ἁμαρτιῶν into a different noun, and it should not be read as adding information beyond the contextual referent.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The genitive plural pronoun identifies the people's sins in a central statement of Jesus' saving mission.
Genitive plural pronoun modifying sins. links the sins to the people being saved. Attached to the from their sins phrase. Governed by the statement that he will save his people. The form clarifies whose sins are in view; the saving verb carries the main theological force.
Whose sins will he save his people from? The pronoun refers to the sins of the people being saved.
Direct: The form directly supports their sins.
The masculine plural form should not be turned into a gender boundary for the saved people. The pronoun marks relation to sins; the clause explains the saving action.
Masculine plural limits salvation language to males: The form is grammatical; the phrase refers to the people in context.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The witness reads αὐτῶν in the closing phrase, and the surrounding clause explicitly says he will save the people from their sins.
The lemma αὐτός is a common reference word that can point back to a previously mentioned person or group, and here it resumes the people already in view.
The plural genitive fits the sense of a plural group whose sins are in view after ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, so the grammar marks relationship but does not itself create the whole meaning.
The sentence presents Jesus as the one who will save his people from their sins, and this pronoun keeps the reader linked to that people as the ones affected by the saving action.
Within the verse, the form supports a straightforward promise of deliverance, and it fits the broader biblical pattern of saving a people from sin without adding a separate doctrine from grammar alone.
For readers and translators, the form signals that the sins belong to the referenced people, so the wording should preserve that connection clearly and naturally.
Do not derive a special theological meaning from masculine gender, and do not infer more specificity than the context provides about the exact identity of the plural referent.