What Does Luke 21:2 Mean in the King James?
And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.
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 Greek calls the coins *lepta*, “thin or fine things,” so their slightness is built into the very word the verse uses for her gift.
THE MEANING
This verse holds a small offering and the giver’s poverty in the same view. It speaks now wherever a gift seems too slight to register: smallness does not make the act invisible.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that only a substantial gift is worth seeing.
THE ROOT
λεπτά
lepta
GROWS FROM
λεπ-
lep-
Thin or fine; a slender, slight thing.
The coin word comes from λεπτός, meaning thin or fine. English “mites” conveys how little the coins are worth, while the Greek also carries their slightness in the name itself.
ALSO GROWS
leptos: Thin, fine, delicate.
λεπτός
This adjective shares the coin’s root and shows that “mite” carries a quality of slightness as well as a denomination.
lepis: A scale or thin flake.
λεπίς
This word shares the λεπ- root and gives the idea a physical image: something small and thin.
THE PATTERN
What is given is understood in relation to the giver’s means, not by amount alone.
For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.For if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not.And she said, As the LORD thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.THE THREAD
I tell thee, thou shalt not depart thence, till thou hast paid the very last mite.“Mite” translates the same Greek coin word in both verses: λεπτόν (lepton), the singular form of the word behind the widow’s two coins. Here it names the smallest unit in an account; in Luke 21:2, two such units are visible in her hand.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us