Christ Had No Home to Lean On

Mat 8:20 The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air [have] nests; but the Son of man has no place to lay [his] head.

Alopex, the word "fox" is, in Greek as English, the metaphor for a sly, crafty man. The term translated as "holes" is pholeos, which means "den," or "lair," and interestingly enough, "schoolhouse." The word for "birds" is peteinon which literally means "winged" or "able to fly." (Christs words often us an adjectival description where we should a noun in English.) The "of the air" is ouranos, which, of course, is the term usually intepreted as "heaven." So combining the terms, peteinon (winged) ouranos (of the heavens), Christ is using birds as a metaphor for angels in contrast to those foxes, the sly crafty men. The term translated as "nests" is kataskenosis means literally "the pitching of tents," "taking one's quarters," and "to camp." In Greek literature, the only use of this word to mean "nests" was in this verse.

The term translated as "to lay" is klino, which means to "lean one thing against another." It is the source of the English terms "incline," and "recline." The term translated as "head" is kephale. The term is also a metaphor for life ("losing your head" in Greek doesn't mean an emotional outburst, but being killed). It also means "completion," "total," or "extremity."

So, what is Christ saying. He is saying that criminals have their lairs and that even angels have a resting place, but the he stood apart and alone, depending on no particular place of time. This might even be a prediction that he would have no physical resting place on earth, no grave.