Matthew 14:31 · Symbol · Doubt
The Words Distazo and Diakrino
The Greek verbs distazo and diakrino stand behind the word doubt in the Gospels and the letters, and only the first always means to doubt.
James uses diakrino for a man tossed like a wave of the sea, and Jude uses the same verb for the archangel Michael disputing with the devil.
When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted.
- The word
- διστάζω (distazo), G1365
- First appears
- Matthew 14:31 “Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and took…”
Summary
Distazo belongs to Matthew alone and describes disciples wavering in the presence of Jesus. Diakrino is a wider verb. In its active forms it means to separate, to judge or to discern, and in its middle and passive forms it can mean to dispute or to waver. The Berean text renders both verbs doubt in many places, and it uses the same English word for apistos, unbelieving, and for dialogismos, a reasoning of the heart. Each use takes its sense from the sentence that holds it.
- Jesus used diakrino when He promised that faith without doubt could move a mountain (Matthew 21:21; Mark 11:23).
- Diakrino stands across the New Testament, in the Gospels, Acts, the letters of Paul, James and Jude.
- James calls the doubter dipsychos, double-minded, a word that stands only in his letter.
Two Verbs Behind One English Word
Two Greek verbs carry most of the New Testament's uses of doubt, and English renders both with one word.
The Words Distazo and Diakrino studies the two Greek verbs the English Bible most often renders doubt. The words show what kind of doubt the New Testament describes, a mind pulled two ways before God, and where the same verb means something else.
The question it answers is what each verb means and how a reader can tell the senses of diakrino apart. It lists every use of both verbs in one table and explains each verb. It then sets beside them the Greek words for unbelief and the double mind, and it gives cautions about reading a word by its parts.
Every Use of Distazo and Diakrino
Matthew alone uses distazo, and diakrino runs from the Gospels to the letter of Jude.
Distazo always means to doubt, and diakrino means to doubt only in its middle and passive forms.
| Word | Verse | The Berean words | Form | Sense |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| distazo | Matthew 14:31 | "why did you doubt?" | aorist active | doubt |
| distazo | Matthew 28:17 | "but some doubted" | aorist active | doubt |
| diakrino | Matthew 16:3 | "You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky" | present active | discern |
| diakrino | Matthew 21:21 | "if you have faith and do not doubt" | aorist passive | doubt |
| diakrino | Mark 11:23 | "has no doubt in his heart" | aorist passive | doubt |
| diakrino | Acts 10:20 | "accompany them without hesitation" | present middle | hesitate |
| diakrino | Acts 11:2 | "the circumcised believers took issue with him" | imperfect middle | dispute |
| diakrino | Acts 11:12 | "The Spirit told me to accompany them without hesitation" | aorist active | make a distinction |
| diakrino | Acts 15:9 | "He made no distinction between us and them" | aorist active | make a distinction |
| diakrino | Romans 4:20 | "he did not waver through disbelief" | aorist passive | waver |
| diakrino | Romans 14:23 | "the one who has doubts is condemned if he eats" | present middle | doubt |
| diakrino | 1 Corinthians 4:7 | "For who makes you so superior?" | present active | set apart |
| diakrino | 1 Corinthians 6:5 | "wise enough to arbitrate between his brothers" | aorist active | judge |
| diakrino | 1 Corinthians 11:29 | "without recognizing the body" | present active | discern |
| diakrino | 1 Corinthians 11:31 | "if we judged ourselves properly" | imperfect active | judge |
| diakrino | 1 Corinthians 14:29 | "the others should weigh carefully what is said" | present active | judge |
| diakrino | James 1:6, twice | "without doubting, because he who doubts" | present middle | doubt |
| diakrino | James 2:4 | "have you not discriminated among yourselves" | aorist passive | make a distinction |
| diakrino | Jude 1:9 | "when he disputed with the devil" | present middle | dispute |
| diakrino | Jude 1:22 | "have mercy on those who doubt" | present middle | doubt |
diakrino, diakrino, diakrino, diakrino, diakrino, diakrino, diakrino, diakrino and 6 more
Distazo, to Waver
Matthew uses the verb for disciples who had seen Jesus' power and still wavered.
Strong's Concordance defines distazo as "properly, to duplicate, i.e. (mentally) to waver (in opinion)". In Matthew 14:31 Jesus sets the verb beside oligopistos, His word for the disciples' little faith.
Matthew's second use comes on the mountain in Galilee after the resurrection. Jesus answered that doubt by coming to the eleven and saying, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Matthew 28:18).
Diakrino, to Judge Between or to Waver
The verb of judging becomes the verb of doubting when the judging turns inward.
Strong's defines diakrino as "to separate thoroughly" and, "figuratively, to discriminate (by implication, decide), or (reflexively) hesitate". The reflexive sense is the one that becomes doubt. The verb then turns on the speaker, who takes issue with another, as the circumcised believers did with Peter (Acts 11:2), or is at odds with himself (James 1:6).
The Berean text renders Acts 10:20 and Acts 11:12 alike, "without hesitation". The Greek of Acts 10:20 is a middle participle, while Acts 11:12 has an active participle, the form Peter uses again at Jerusalem for God making no distinction (Acts 15:9).
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible (1832), glossed the participle of James 1:6 as "Not judging otherwise; having no doubt concerning the truth of these grand and fundamental principles".
Jude 1:22 uses the same middle participle for the doubting believers the church is told to pity.
Unbelief and the Double Mind
Three more Greek words lie close to the two verbs, and English often renders them with doubt as well.
Apistia, unbelief, stands 10 times. Hebrews 3:12 warns of "a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God", while the father of Mark 9:24 asks Jesus to help his unbelief.
Apistos, unbelieving, stands 23 times. In John 20:27 the Berean text renders it "Stop doubting and believe", so the word Jesus spoke to Thomas is apistos.
Dipsychos, which Strong's glosses "two-spirited, i.e. vacillating (in opinion or purpose)", is the word James uses for the doubter, "a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8).
Cautions in Reading the Words
A word's parts suggest a sense that its uses may not carry.
Distazo looks like dis, the Greek word for twice, and a reader may hear a double mind in the prefix alone. Its sense comes from the sentences that hold it.
A reader who takes every use of diakrino as a mind divided misreads the verb. In 1 Corinthians 11:29 and James 2:4 it means to recognize and to discriminate, with no wavering in view.
English doubt also renders other words, such as dialogismoi, the reasonings of Luke 24:38, so a reader who wants the Greek behind a verse looks at the verse itself.
A Mind Pulled Two Ways
Jesus met the wavering of His own followers.
The doubt these words name is the wavering of people who already follow Christ, and Jesus reached out His hand to Peter before He asked His question (Matthew 14:31).
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged Greek text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible TBESG lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, with the definitions of James Strong, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832), on James 1:6.
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