Matthew 8:20
New International Version
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

New Living Translation
But Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place even to lay his head.”

English Standard Version
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Berean Standard Bible
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”

Berean Literal Bible
And Jesus says to him, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere He might lay the head."

King James Bible
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.

New King James Version
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

New American Standard Bible
And 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.”

NASB 1995
Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

NASB 1977
And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Legacy Standard Bible
And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Amplified Bible
Jesus replied to him, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Christian Standard Bible
Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Jesus told him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head."”

American Standard Version
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.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Yeshua said to him, “Foxes have lairs and birds of the sky have shelters, but The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Contemporary English Version
Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens, and birds have nests. But the Son of Man doesn't have a place to call his own."

Douay-Rheims Bible
And Jesus saith to him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests: but the son of man hath not where to lay his head.

English Revised Version
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.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Jesus told him, "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to sleep."

Good News Translation
Jesus answered him, "Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lie down and rest."

International Standard Version
Jesus told him, "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest."

Literal Standard Version
and Jesus says to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky places of rest, but the Son of Man has nowhere He may lay the head.”

Majority Standard Bible
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.”

New American Bible
Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”

NET Bible
Jesus said to him, "Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

New Revised Standard Version
And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

New Heart English Bible
And 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."

Webster's Bible Translation
And Jesus saith to 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.

Weymouth New Testament
"Foxes have holes," replied Jesus, "and birds have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

World English Bible
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.”

Young's Literal Translation
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.'

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Cost of Discipleship
19And one of the scribes came to Him and said, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” 20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” 21Another of His disciples requested, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”…

Cross References
Psalm 104:12
The birds of the air nest beside the springs; they sing among the branches.

Daniel 7:13
In my vision in the night I continued to watch, and I saw One like the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into His presence.

Matthew 12:8
For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath."

Matthew 12:32
Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the one to come.

Matthew 12:40
For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Matthew 13:37
He replied, "The One who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.

Mark 8:38
If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father's glory with the holy angels."


Treasury of Scripture

And Jesus said to him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has not where to lay his head.

and.

Psalm 84:3
Yea, the sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.

Psalm 104:17
Where the birds make their nests: as for the stork, the fir trees are her house.

the Son.

Psalm 40:17
But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

Psalm 69:29
But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.

Psalm 109:22
For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

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Matthew 8
1. Jesus cleanses the leper;
5. heals the centurion's servant,
14. Peter's mother in law,
16. and many others;
18. shows the cost of following him;
23. stills the storm on the sea;
28. drives the demons out of two men possessed;
31. and tells them to go into the pigs.














(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. . . .

Verse 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.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
Jesus
Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2424: Of Hebrew origin; Jesus, the name of our Lord and two other Israelites.

replied,
λέγει (legei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 3004: (a) I say, speak; I mean, mention, tell, (b) I call, name, especially in the pass., (c) I tell, command.

“Foxes
ἀλώπεκες (alōpekes)
Noun - Nominative Feminine Plural
Strong's 258: A fox; a fox-like, crafty person. Of uncertain derivation; a fox, i.e. a cunning person.

have
ἔχουσιν (echousin)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Plural
Strong's 2192: To have, hold, possess. Including an alternate form scheo skheh'-o; a primary verb; to hold.

dens,
φωλεοὺς (phōleous)
Noun - Accusative Masculine Plural
Strong's 5454: A burrow, hole, den, lair. Of uncertain derivative; a burrow or lurking-place.

and
καὶ (kai)
Conjunction
Strong's 2532: And, even, also, namely.

birds
πετεινὰ (peteina)
Noun - Nominative Neuter Plural
Strong's 4071: A bird, fowl. Neuter of a derivative of petomai; a flying animal, i.e. Bird.

of the
τοῦ (tou)
Article - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

air [have]
οὐρανοῦ (ouranou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 3772: Perhaps from the same as oros; the sky; by extension, heaven; by implication, happiness, power, eternity; specially, the Gospel.

nests,
κατασκηνώσεις (kataskēnōseis)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Plural
Strong's 2682: A dwelling-place. From kataskenoo; an encamping, i.e. a perch.

but
δὲ (de)
Conjunction
Strong's 1161: A primary particle; but, and, etc.

[the] Son
Υἱὸς (Huios)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5207: A son, descendent. Apparently a primary word; a 'son', used very widely of immediate, remote or figuratively, kinship.

of Man
ἀνθρώπου (anthrōpou)
Noun - Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong's 444: A man, one of the human race. From aner and ops; man-faced, i.e. A human being.

has
ἔχει (echei)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 2192: To have, hold, possess. Including an alternate form scheo skheh'-o; a primary verb; to hold.

no
οὐκ (ouk)
Adverb
Strong's 3756: No, not. Also ouk, and ouch a primary word; the absolute negative adverb; no or not.

[place]
ποῦ (pou)
Adverb
Strong's 4226: Genitive case of an interrogative pronoun pos otherwise obsolete; as adverb of place; at what locality.

to lay
κλίνῃ (klinē)
Verb - Present Subjunctive Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 2827: A primary verb; to slant or slope, i.e. Incline or recline.

[His]
τὴν (tēn)
Article - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

head.”
κεφαλὴν (kephalēn)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 2776: From the primary kapto; the head, literally or figuratively.


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