Matthew Chapter 8 verse 20 Holy Bible

ASV Matthew 8:20

And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven `have' nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
read chapter 8 in ASV

BBE Matthew 8:20

And Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven have a resting-place; but the Son of man has nowhere to put his head.
read chapter 8 in BBE

DARBY Matthew 8:20

And Jesus says to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven roosting-places; but the Son of man has not where he may lay his head.
read chapter 8 in DARBY

KJV Matthew 8:20

And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
read chapter 8 in KJV

WBT Matthew 8:20


read chapter 8 in WBT

WEB Matthew 8:20

Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."
read chapter 8 in WEB

YLT Matthew 8:20

and Jesus saith to him, `The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where he may lay the head.'
read chapter 8 in YLT

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 20. - And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes. The Asiatic fox (Vulpes corsac) is decidedly smaller than our European species, but has the same habits. And the birds of the air (Revised Version, heaven) have nests. So the Old Latin and the common text of the Vulgate (nidos), but birds do not generally live in nests, nor is "nests" so natural a meaning for κατασκηνώσεις as" shelters" (cf. Trench, loc. cit.). The renderings in the true text of the Vulgate (tabernacula), and in Old Latin k, and Cyprian (devorsoria) are interesting. Revised Version margin has, "Gk. lodging places" (cf. Matthew 13:32 and parallel pas sages). But the Son of man. The original phrase, "one like unto a son of man," was used in Daniel 7:13, apparently as a symbol of the Jewish nation, to which was to be given supreme power. There is no evidence that it was understood of Messiah before our Lord employed it, but rather the re verse (cf. Bishop Westcott, on John 1:51, and especially Professor Stanton, 'Jewish and Christian Messiah,' pp. 109, 239, sqq.; yet see Professor Sunday, in Expositor, January, 1891; cf. further, Matthew 9:6, note). Our Lord uses it here for the sake of the contrast it suggested to the lower creation. Man, the head of creation (as none would acknowledge more fully than this student of the Law), has in the person of the ideal Man not even the luxuries which correspond to those enjoyed by beasts and birds. Such was the love and self-abasement of the Restorer of creation (Romans 8:21). Hath not where to lay his head. He has no home to call his own.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(20) The foxes have holes.--Our Lord's answer seems to indicate that it was hardly more than the show. The scribe had not counted the cost, and, like the young ruler that had great possessions, needed to be taught. To follow the Son of Man was not to be the adherent of a new sect or party, or the servant of a king marching onward to an earthly throne, but to share in poverty, privation, homelessness.Nests.--The word is sufficient for popular use, but, strictly speaking, the "nest" belongs only to the brooding season of a bird's life, and the Greek word has the wider meaning of "shelter."The Son of man.--The passage is remarkable as the first in this Gospel in which the name occurs which was afterwards so prominent in our Lord's teaching, and this is accordingly the right place for tracing the history and significance of that title.As found in the Old Testament, the term is the literal translation of the Hebrew ben-adam, the latter word expressing the generic weakness and frailty of man's nature, as the Hebrew ish expresses its greatness and its strength. It stands therefore as representing man idealised under that one aspect of his being. "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him?" (Psalm 8:4); "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom is no help" (Psalm 146:3), are instances of its use in this meaning. In some passages our version expresses the same thought by rendering the "sons of Adam" and the "sons of Ish "as" low and high" (Psalm 49:2), or the former word alone as "men of low degree" (Psalm 62:9). The title received a new prominence about the time of the Captivity from its use in Ezekiel's prophecies. There it appears frequently (not fewer than eighty-seven times in all) as the title with which the prophet is addressed by the voice of Jehovah. We can scarcely doubt that it was used there in all the fulness of its earlier meaning, and was designed to teach the prophet that, amid all the greatness of his work, he was still subject to all the weakness and temptations of man's nature, and ought therefore to have compassion on their infirmities. Yet a fresh aspect of the name was presented in the mysterious vision of Daniel 7:13, in which "One like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and was brought to the Ancient of Days, . . . and there was given unto Him dominion and glory and a kingdom." The word used is not, it is true, benadam, but bar-enosh, but there is no traceable distinction of meaning between the two. Here, then, the thought manifestly was this, that One who shared man's weakness, should also be a sharer of God's glory, and be the Head of the divine kingdom. The prominence which the Maccabean struggles gave to the predictions of Daniel drew attention to the name as it had thus been used. The "Son of Man" became one of the titles of the expected Christ. The Targum or Paraphrase of the Psalms (probably earlier than our Lord's ministry) explains even such a passage as Psalm 80:17 ("the son of man whom thou madest so strong for thine own self") as referring to the Christ. So when the crowd at Jerusalem are questioning in their hearts whether Jesus was the Christ, they are not startled at this application of the name, and their question, "Who is this Son of Man?" is the utterance of their wonder that things so unlike what they expected of the Christ should be predicted of One who claimed the title (John 12:34). It was accordingly, with these ideas attached to it--involving at once fellowship with the lowest of the heirs of our humanity, and yet also participation in the eternal glory of the Highest--that our Lord claimed the title, and used it with such marvellous frequency. We might almost say that it serves as the chief connecting-link between the teaching of the first three Gospels and the fourth. It appears thirty-two times in St. Matthew, fourteen in St. Mark, twenty-six in St. Luke, and twelve times in St. John. It is remarkable that it never passed into the current language of the Apostolic Church, nor into the theological or liturgical phraseology of Christendom. It is not used in any one of the Epistles. Outside the Gospels it is found only in the exclamation of Stephen (Acts 7:56), with a manifest reference to Daniel 7:13, and possibly in the visions of the Apocalypse (Revelation 1:13; Revelation 14:14). The minds of believers loved to dwell on the glory of the risen Christ, and apparently looked on this as belonging rather to the time of His humiliation. Its absence from the other books of the New Testament, and its presence in the Gospels is, at all events, an indication that the latter were not the after-growth of a later age. . . .