What Does Luke 20:28 Mean in the King James?
Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
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
“Raise up seed” shares its Greek word family with “resurrection,” so the brother’s line already carries the language of rising.
THE MEANING
The instruction binds a living brother’s future to the continuation of the brother who dies without children. Seed carries that line forward, giving the dead brother’s place a future in the life of another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A childless death erases a person’s place in the family’s future.
THE ROOT
ἐξανιστήσῃ
exanistēsē
GROWS FROM
ἀνίστημι
anistēmi
To stand up or rise; in a compound, to raise up.
The verb ἐξανίστημι (exanistēmi, raise up) belongs to the same word family as ἀνάστασις (anastasis, resurrection). English can make this sound like only a family duty, while the Greek also lets the phrase echo the rising at the heart of this passage.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: To stand up; to rise.
ἀνίστημι
This base verb carries the standing and rising idea inside “raise up.”
anastasis: Rising; resurrection.
ἀνάστασις
Luke uses this noun for resurrection later in the same exchange, linking the brother’s line standing through seed with the question of whether the dead rise.
σπέρμα
sperma
GROWS FROM
σπείρω
speirō
To sow or scatter seed.
The Greek noun σπέρμα (sperma, seed or offspring) keeps the act of sowing close to the idea of descent. The English word “seed” preserves the image, while its Greek word family makes offspring and sowing part of one pattern: a future planted into the living.
ALSO GROWS
speirō: To sow.
σπείρω
The shared word family connects offspring with the act of planting what will continue beyond the present.
spora: Sowing; seed.
σπορά
This related word keeps the image of seed tied to what is sown, illuminating how the brother’s line is carried forward.
THE PATTERN
Seed makes a dead person’s family line stand in the lives that continue.
And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother.And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:THE THREAD
Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.“Raise up” in this verse uses ἐξανίστημι (exanistēmi, raise up), from the same word family as ἀνάστασις (anastasis, resurrection) in this verse. The shared root lets the question of a brother’s line standing through seed open into the larger question of the dead rising.
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