Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
The soldiers say "Hail, King of the Jews" (Matthew 27:29), which a modern reader might picture as some kind of chant or hailstorm reference.
"Hail" was a standard greeting, equivalent to "Ave Caesar": the soldiers are mockingly saluting Jesus with a formal royal greeting, not chanting or referencing weather.
Matthew 27:29, in every translation this tool compares.
"Hail" as a greeting comes from the same root as "hale" and "health," meaning roughly "be well" or "long life to you": it was the standard way to salute an emperor or king. The soldiers use this formal, respectful greeting sarcastically while mocking Jesus with a crown of thorns.
The greeting sense of "hail" has almost entirely dropped out of everyday English (surviving mainly in "all hail" or "Hail Mary"), so modern readers who only know "hail" as frozen precipitation, or as a verb meaning to summon a cab, can miss that it's a salutation here.
