What Does Luke 18:11 Mean in the King James?
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
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
He invokes God, but uses other people as the mirror that declares him aligned.
THE MEANING
The speaker’s words reach toward God while his attention fixes on his own moral rank. He uses the people he names as a measure of himself, and his thanks becomes a declaration that he stands above them. The phrase translated “with himself” can also be heard as “to himself,” sharpening the possibility that the prayer folds back onto its speaker.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that another person’s wrongness is evidence of one’s own alignment.
THE ROOT
ἄδικοι
adikoi
GROWS FROM
δικ- (dik-) / δίκη (dikē)
Justice; what is right or due.
“Unjust” (ἄδικοι, adikoi) adds a negative prefix to the δικ- family of justice and alignment. That makes his judgment of others share a verbal root with the “justified” verdict the publican receives in the next verse: the story’s irony is already planted inside this word.
ALSO GROWS
dikaios: Just; aligned with what is right.
δίκαιος
This is the positive form of the family he negates when he calls the others “unjust.”
dikaiosynē: Justice, righteousness; alignment.
δικαιοσύνη
The same family links a moral verdict to alignment, so “unjust” is more than a rival label.
dikaioō: Justify; declare just.
δικαιόω
Luke uses this same word family for the publican’s verdict in Luke 18:14.
THE PATTERN
Self-measurement that elevates one person over another can look clean in one’s own eyes while remaining subject to God’s measure.
All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.THE THREAD
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.“Unjust” in this verse and “justified” in the next share the δικ- (dik-) word family. The publican, whom the Pharisee uses as a measure of his own standing, receives the verdict the Pharisee assumes for himself.
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