What Does Luke 6:19 Mean in the King James?
And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.
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 “virtue” leaving Jesus is active power, and the crowd’s touch is where that outward-moving power meets the body and becomes healing.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in the present: the life in Jesus moves outward as active power, and your reaching toward him becomes contact with that power. Healing reaches the whole multitude, with none in the scene held outside its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that restoration is reserved for a select few is undone here: the verse says the power heals the whole multitude.
THE ROOT
δύναμις
dynamis
GROWS FROM
δύναμαι / δύναμις
Be able; capacity or power.
The word translated “virtue” names power or capacity at work. Beside “went out,” it gives the verse a movement: power flows from Jesus and reaches those around him.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: To be able, have power.
δύναμαι
The shared word family presents the healing power as effective capacity, not merely a quality or reputation.
dynatos: Able, powerful.
δυνατός
This branch makes the same link between power and what can actually be done.
ἅπτεσθαι
haptesthai
GROWS FROM
ἅπτω / ἅπτομαι
To attach, fasten, or touch; in some uses, to kindle.
The crowd seeks contact that attaches them to Jesus. The root’s sense of fastening gives the touch the force of connection, fitting the verse’s picture of power going out and healing reaching them.
ALSO GROWS
hapto: To fasten or touch; also to kindle.
ἅπτω
It preserves the sense of contact as an active joining, not a distant glance.
haphē: Contact or connection; also a joint.
ἁφή
This related word can name the point of connection through which a body is joined together, echoing the verse’s touch and healing.
ἰᾶτο
iato
GROWS FROM
ἰα-
ia-
To heal or cure.
“healed” in this verse is iato. The healing verb belongs to a word family that also names healing and the healer. Here restoration is not an abstraction: the power’s outward movement reaches people and cures them.
ALSO GROWS
iasis: Healing or cure.
ἴασις
The noun names the restoration enacted in the verse’s verb.
iatros: A physician or healer.
ἰατρός
This branch names the one associated with healing, connecting the act of cure to its source.
THE PATTERN
Restoration passes through contact with the life that carries it, reaching bodies where that life is touched.
And it came to pass, as they were burying a man, that, behold, they spied a band of men; and they cast the man into the sepulchre of Elisha: and when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived, and stood up on his feet.And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.THE THREAD
And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.Luke uses the same Greek word, δύναμις (dynamis), for the power that goes out of Jesus. The verse also repeats the touch: contact marks the point where outward-moving power is received and healing occurs.
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