The verb describes the purposeful spreading or arranging of material objects—garments, branches, bedding, or furnishings—so that a space becomes ready for use. It evokes preparation, welcome, honor, and orderly care, themes that surface whenever the word appears in the New Testament.

Old Testament Background

In the Septuagint the same verb is used of spreading coverings on beds (for example, Ezekiel 16:40) and of arranging festive pathways (2 Kings 9:13). Such contexts associate the action with hospitality, royal homage, and covenant celebration, laying a literary foundation for the Gospel writers’ employment of the term.

New Testament Usage

1. Preparation for the Passover meal (Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12). The disciples are told, “He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Prepare for us there” (Mark 14:15). The room’s being “spread” conveys thorough readiness for the Last Supper, underscoring divine sovereignty over the details of redemption’s timetable.
2. The Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:8; Mark 11:8). “A massive crowd spread their cloaks on the road” (Matthew 21:8). By carpeting the path, the multitude publicly acknowledges Jesus as the promised King (Zechariah 9:9), reenacting coronation customs that reserved such honor for royalty. The spreading gesture, therefore, intertwines worship, messianic expectation, and the voluntary submission of personal property to Christ’s rule.
3. Apostolic healing (Acts 9:34). Peter commands the paralytic Aeneas, “Jesus Christ heals you! Get up and make your bed”. The once-immobile man now spreads his own mat, a concrete testimony to the completeness of his restoration and to the life-giving authority that the risen Lord grants His witnesses.

Christological Significance

• Prepared upper room: Christ, the true Passover Lamb, presides over a setting already arranged, highlighting His pre-eminence in salvation history (compare John 13:3).
• Triumphal road: The strewn cloaks and branches prefigure the universal acclaim that will surround the King at His return (Revelation 7:9-10).
• Restored mat: Every healing points beyond itself to the comprehensive renewal secured by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Practical and Ministry Lessons

Hospitality—Believers are called to make ready places and schedules for the Lord’s purposes, imitating the unnamed homeowner who had “furnished” the upper room before knowing its ultimate use.

Submission—Laying garments before Jesus models the surrender of resources, reputations, and rights to His kingship.

Stewardship of wholeness—As Aeneas rose to spread his own bed, so healed believers should exercise newfound strength in service, not self-indulgence.

Eschatological hope—Every act of preparation anticipates the marriage supper of the Lamb, where all creation will be perfectly “spread” for eternal fellowship with Christ.