What Does Luke 8:49 Mean in the King James?
While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.
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
Death arrives here carrying an instruction: stop asking the Master.
THE MEANING
This is the moment when grief arrives with an instruction attached: your daughter is dead; stop bringing this to the Master. The verse shows how a real loss can become a boundary on what still seems possible to ask or receive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that once a loss is final, the need itself becomes too much to bring before the Master.
THE ROOT
σκύλλε
skýlle
GROWS FROM
σκύλλω (skýllō), stem σκυλλ-
To flay; by extension, to harass, trouble, or wear down.
“trouble” in this verse is skýlle. The messenger uses a verb that can describe harassing or wearing someone down. He frames the father’s need as a burden to stop bringing, while Jesus’ next words keep the encounter open.
ALSO GROWS
skýllou: A form of the same verb, used when the centurion asks Jesus not to trouble himself.
σκύλλου
The same appeal to stop troubling Jesus appears in another healing story, where the need is still met.
eskylmenoi: A participle from the same verb, describing people who are harassed and cast down.
ἐσκυλμένοι
This branch shows the word’s force: it can describe people weighed down by distress, not just a minor inconvenience.
τέθνηκεν
tethnēken
GROWS FROM
θνῄσκω (thnēskō), stem θνη-
To die; in this form, “has died.”
“dead” in this verse is tethnēken. The Greek form is a perfect: the messenger reports that she has died, with the event treated as complete. The verse does not soften that report; its tension is that this completed fact is immediately followed by an instruction not to end the encounter.
ALSO GROWS
thnēskō: The verb naming the event of dying.
θνῄσκω
The reported “dead” carries the verb’s sense of a death that has taken place.
thnētos: A word from the same stem meaning subject to death.
θνητός
This branch places the daughter’s reported death within the language of mortality itself.
THE PATTERN
A death report names what has happened, but does not exhaust what life-giving presence can do next.
And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.And he came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he delivered him to his mother.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:THE THREAD
Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof:The centurion uses the same Greek verb when he says, “trouble not thyself.” In that story the need is still met without Jesus entering the house; here, the same appeal to stop troubling him arrives just as the daughter’s death is announced.
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