Five-minute study · Day 82 · Matthew 20
Matthew 20:28
A word worth stopping on: ransom λύτρον lytron
The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many. Lytron. A price tag. First-century listeners knew exactly what this word meant because they had seen it on legal documents at the temple. Slaves freed for a price. Prisoners of war purchased back from captors. The transaction was public, recorded, witnessed, and legally binding. When Jesus used lytron for what he was about to do at the cross, he placed himself inside a commercial framework his audience understood down to the last coin.
Word study: ransom
- Greek
- λύτρον
- Pronounced
- lytron
- Strong's
- G3083
- Definition
- The price paid for releasing a slave, a prisoner of war, or a person under legal obligation. A redemption payment.
BDAG defines lytron as 'the price of release, ransom,' noting its technical use in Hellenistic commercial and legal documents. Deissmann, in Light from the Ancient East, demonstrated that lytron appeared frequently in Greek papyri from Egypt, particularly in manumission records: the formal documents that freed slaves. The process worked like this: the slave's purchase price was deposited at a local temple, usually dedicated to Apollo or Sarapis. The temple priest oversaw the transaction. The former owner received the lytron. The slave walked out free. The document recorded the amount, the names of the parties, and the phrase 'for freedom' (ep' eleutheria).
Deissmann's discovery in the early twentieth century transformed how scholars understood the New Testament's ransom language. Paul's phrase 'ye are bought with a price' (1 Corinthians 6:20, 7:23) maps directly onto the manumission formula. The metaphor was alive in everyday commerce.
The word appears only twice in the New Testament: here in Matthew 20:28 and in the parallel passage, Mark 10:45. Both times, Jesus uses it to describe his own death. The preposition anti ('for many') indicates substitution: the lytron is paid in place of those who owe the debt. Jesus positions himself as both the one who pays and the currency in which the payment is made.
Marshall and France both note that lytron connects to the Hebrew kopher, the ransom price in Exodus 21:30 that a man could pay to redeem his life when his ox had killed someone. The LXX translates kopher with lytron. Jesus' audience, steeped in Torah, would have heard the resonance: a life-price paid to avert death.
Historical context · Third century BC through first century AD
How a Slave Walked Free
The manumission inscriptions at Delphi, carved into the polygonal retaining wall of Apollo's temple, are among the most important archaeological discoveries for understanding New Testament redemption language. Over a thousand inscriptions survive, dating from the third century BC to the first century AD. Each records a slave sale to the god Apollo, which was the legal fiction used to accomplish manumission. The slave's owner 'sold' the slave to Apollo for a price (the lytron). Because a god cannot be a slave-owner in any practical sense, the slave was effectively freed.
A typical inscription reads: 'Apollo the Pythian bought from Sosibius of Amphissa, for freedom, a female slave whose name is Nicaea, at a price of three minae of silver.' The lytron was real money. Three minae equaled 300 drachmas, roughly 300 days' wages for a laborer. Freedom was expensive.
The process required witnesses, a public setting, and a written record. The freed slave received a document proving their new status. Deissmann, who first connected these inscriptions to Paul's language in the 1900s, argued that early Christians in Greek-speaking cities would have understood 'ransomed' and 'redeemed' through the lens of these transactions. The metaphor was concrete. You could walk to the temple and read the records on the wall.
Roman law added another layer. Under Roman captivity law (ius postliminii), a prisoner of war who was ransomed could be restored to full citizen rights upon returning home. The lytron erased the captivity as if it had never happened. The freed person re-entered society whole. When Jesus says he gives his life as a lytron, the legal implications are total: captivity ended, debts cleared, status restored.
For reflection
Lytron was a public transaction. Witnesses watched. Documents were signed. The freed slave received proof. Consider what it means that your freedom was purchased at a specific time, in a specific place, with a specific cost. It was recorded. It happened. What debt or captivity are you still living under as if the lytron had never been paid?
The Delphi inscriptions still exist. The transactions are still legible after two thousand years. So is yours.
Sources: BDAG; Deissmann, 'Light from the Ancient East'; France, 'Matthew' (NICNT); Marshall, 'The Origins of New Testament Christology'