What Does Luke 22:50 Mean in the King James?
And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.
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 right ear taken here is the very place Torah marks with blood when a priest is set apart.
THE MEANING
One person’s allegiance becomes a blow against the high priest’s servant, and his right ear is taken away. The wound falls on the same place marked in priestly setting apart, making the cost of violence visible in the body and in the organ of hearing.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that force becomes holy when it is used to defend what is holy.
THE ROOT
ἀφεῖλεν
apheilen
GROWS FROM
ἀφαιρέω (aphaireō), from ἀπό (apo, away) + αἱρέω (haireō, take)
Take away, remove.
The KJV gives the injury as “cut off,” while the verb’s wider sense is taking something away. The same verb names taking away sins in Hebrews 10:4, but here the object remains brutally physical: a human ear.
ALSO GROWS
apheilen: Took away or removed.
ἀφεῖλεν
Here, what is removed is the servant’s right ear; the verb holds the physical violence in view.
aphairein: To take away or remove.
ἀφαιρεῖν
The same verb names taking away sins there, showing how one Greek verb can describe removal with very different objects.
THE PATTERN
Scripture marks the ear as a place of setting apart and opened hearing, and returns to it when it is wounded and healed.
Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.THE THREAD
And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron’s right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot.This is the rite that makes the right ear in Luke more than a random detail: Aaron’s ear receives blood as part of his setting apart. The servant’s severed ear occupies that same bodily site, so the wound strikes a place associated with priestly hearing and service.
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