What Does Luke 9:15 Mean in the King James?

And they did so, and made them all sit down.

Luke 9:15 · KJV

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 crowd is arranged as a table before the bread is ever placed in its hands.

THE MEANING

You are seeing the people gathered into a shared place of receiving before food arrives. The verse gives the meal’s posture before the meal itself.

THE ROOT

κατέκλιναν

katéklinan

GROWS FROM

κλιν

klin

To bend or incline; in this verb, to make someone recline, especially at a meal.

The Greek verb points to reclining at a table, so the crowd is not merely stopped in place: they are gathered into the posture of a shared meal. English “sit down” keeps the action but hides that table-shaped sense.

ALSO GROWS

klínē: Bed or couch.

κλίνη

This noun shares the ⁨κλιν⁩ stem and makes the posture of reclining tangible: the people are settled, not left standing in a scattered crowd.

anaklínō: Recline or make someone recline.

ἀνακλίνω

This related verb also describes taking a reclining place for a meal, echoing how the crowd is positioned before the food is distributed.

THE PATTERN

Provision takes shape as food is placed before a gathered people and shared among them.

And his servitor said, What, should I set this before an hundred men? He said again, Give the people, that they may eat: for thus saith the LORD, They shall eat, and shall leave thereof.

2 Kings 4:43 · KJVFood that seems insufficient is placed before the gathered people, who eat and have some left.

And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.

Matthew 14:19 · KJVThe multitude is seated together before the loaves and fishes are broken and passed among them.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,

Acts 2:46 · KJVBread shared from house to house turns a gathered community into a recurring table.

THE THREAD

When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honourable man than thou be bidden of him;

Luke 14:8 · KJV

“Sit down” here and in Luke 9:15 translates forms of ⁨κατακλίνω⁩, the same verb for reclining at a meal. Luke 14 places that posture within a banquet’s seating order; Luke 9 sets the whole crowd into it before the food is shared.

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