What Does Luke 15:19 Mean in the King James?
And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
His shame has turned a son’s homecoming into a job application.
THE MEANING
Failure can make return feel like a bargain: sonship seems out of reach, so he offers his usefulness in exchange for a worker’s place. He calls himself unworthy, but that verdict is his own; the father’s answer is still to come.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You can return only if you earn your place again, because your failure has ended your place as a child.
THE ROOT
ἄξιος
axios
GROWS FROM
ἀξι-
axi-
Having corresponding worth; fit or deserving.
“worthy” in this verse is axios. The word frames sonship as something measured against his failure. He treats his own assessment of his worth as a verdict on whether he can still belong.
ALSO GROWS
axioō: To consider or deem worthy.
ἀξιόω
The shared stem makes worth an assessment applied to someone, just as the son assesses himself here.
axia: Worth or value.
ἀξία
His claim that he is no longer worthy turns his place in the family into a question of value.
μισθίων
misthiōn
GROWS FROM
μισθ-
misth-
Wages or pay.
“hired servants” in this verse is misthiōn. He does not merely ask to return at a lower rank; he offers to exchange kinship for paid work. The wages-root shows how completely he has recast belonging as something earned.
ALSO GROWS
misthos: Wages or reward.
μισθός
This is the pay at the center of the hired worker’s relationship, the substitute the son proposes for family belonging.
misthoō: To hire or let out for wages.
μισθόω
This branch makes the proposed change concrete: he imagines himself hired into the household rather than welcomed as a son.
THE PATTERN
In God’s household, belonging is kinship rather than a worker’s place earned through performance.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.THE THREAD
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.The son offers wages in place of sonship, but before he can make the offer, his father sees him, has compassion, and runs to embrace him. The father’s response shows that the son’s judgment of his worth does not decide his place.
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