To DENY, disown, refuse to acknowledge — a strengthened form of arneomai. ⚠ In Matthew the compound appears in exactly two settings, and setting them side by side is the point: at 16:24, 'if anyone wants to come after me, let him DENY HIMSELF and take up his cross'; and at 26:34 and 26:75, 'you will DENY me three times.' Denying yourself and denying him are one word apart in this Gospel, and Peter — who was standing there for the first — does the second. Matthew never remarks on it. A detail the English usually loses: the two ACTUAL denials in the courtyard (26:70, 72) use the simple verb arneomai, while the prediction and the remembering use the compound. → first discussed at Matt 16:24