What Does Luke 2:35 Mean in the King James?
(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
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
The verse places a sword’s piercing beside an uncovering: what lies hidden in the heart can be brought into view.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two realities together: a sword pierces the living soul, and the heart’s inner deliberations are uncovered. Pain is not softened, and what is revealed is more than a passing thought; it is what the heart has been weighing within itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what the heart carries stays hidden: the verse says its deliberations can be uncovered.
THE ROOT
ἀποκαλυφθῶσιν
apokalyphthōsin
GROWS FROM
καλύπτω
kalyptō
To cover; with ἀπό (apo, away from), ἀποκαλύπτω means to uncover or reveal.
“revealed” in this verse is apokalyphthōsin. The Greek word pictures a covering being taken away. The heart’s deliberations are not planted there by the revealing; what is already within is opened to view.
ALSO GROWS
kalyptō: Cover or conceal.
καλύπτω
It supplies the image behind “revealed”: what was covered can be exposed.
apokalypsis: Uncovering, revelation.
ἀποκάλυψις
This related noun names the disclosure as an uncovering of what was hidden.
kalymma: Veil or covering.
κάλυμμα
The related word for a covering makes the concealed-and-uncovered image in this verse more tangible.
ψυχή
psychē
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
The Greek word family around ψυχή: life, soul, the living self.
“soul” in this verse is psychē. Here ψυχή names the living self reached by the piercing, not merely an abstract inner object. Its word family also speaks of natural life and likeness between persons.
ALSO GROWS
psychikos: Natural; pertaining to the soul or living life.
ψυχικός
This branch keeps the word family connected to the lived, embodied person.
isopsychos: Of like soul; like-minded.
ἰσόψυχος
This compound shows ψυχή can describe an inner life held in likeness with another.
διαλογισμοί
dialogismoi
GROWS FROM
διαλογίζομαι / λογίζομαι (dialogizomai / logizomai)
To reason through, reckon, or consider.
“thoughts” in this verse is dialogismoi. The word points to reasonings and inner weighing, not only isolated ideas. The verse says these deliberations of the heart can be brought into the open.
ALSO GROWS
dialogizomai: Reason, deliberate, or consider within oneself.
διαλογίζομαι
This verb shows the active process behind the heart’s deliberations.
logizomai: Reckon, count, or consider.
λογίζομαι
This related verb carries the sense of weighing something inwardly, illuminating what “thoughts” can conceal in English.
THE PATTERN
What is hidden in the heart can be searched out and brought into view.
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.THE THREAD
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.Hebrews joins the same images: a swordlike force pierces to the soul, and the sentence names the heart’s thoughts and intents as discerned. It makes explicit the inward architecture Luke places beside the piercing and the unveiling.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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