What Does Luke 4:25 Mean in the King James?
But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land;
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
When the heavens close, famine is no private misfortune: the verse places many widows within a crisis spanning the land.
THE MEANING
The verse names a shared condition: the heavens are shut, famine fills the land, and many widows are exposed within it. The next verse narrows that widespread need to one widow beyond Israel’s borders.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that the need belongs to one person alone dissolves here: many widows and a whole land are caught in the famine.
THE ROOT
ἐκλείσθη
ekleísthē
GROWS FROM
κλείω
kleíō
to shut or close
“shut up” in this verse is ekleísthē. The verse describes the heavens as closed, not merely rainless. This word family also names the key and the bolt, so the closure carries an image of access held shut.
ALSO GROWS
kleís: key; bolt
κλείς
The same word family links the shut heavens to the thing that locks or opens.
kleîthron: bar; bolt
κλεῖθρον
A bar holds an opening closed, deepening the sense of closure in the verse.
χῆραι
chērai
GROWS FROM
χηρ-
chēr-
bereft or deprived; specifically, a widow, one left bereft
“widows” in this verse is chērai. The word carries bereavement within its meaning: a widow is one left bereft. Here that personal loss remains visible inside a famine that reaches the whole land.
ALSO GROWS
chēreuō: to be widowed
χηρεύω
The related verb names the condition behind the noun: being left without a spouse.
chēreia: widowhood
χηρεία
The related noun names widowhood as a condition that persists within the wider crisis.
THE PATTERN
When rain is withheld, scarcity becomes a condition of the whole land rather than one household’s private hardship.
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the LORD God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread.THE THREAD
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;Luke’s “shut” and Revelation’s “shutteth” share a root family that also gives the word for “key.” Revelation places the key beside what is shut or opened, extending Luke’s closed-sky image into a question of access.
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