What Does Luke 9:55 Mean in the King James?
But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.
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
Jesus’ rebuke makes the nature behind a response matter more than the religious language used to justify it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now: an impulse can come from a nature you do not recognize, even when it borrows sacred language. When rejection stirs a desire to destroy, Jesus’ rebuke exposes the gap between invoking God and reflecting the breath that shapes his response. The source of an impulse becomes visible in what it moves you toward.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Invoking God does not make a destructive impulse God’s own.
THE ROOT
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ
pneu
To breathe or blow; breath or moving air.
πνεῦμα (pneuma) can name breath, wind, or spirit, holding physical movement and inward disposition in one word. Jesus’ rebuke reaches beneath the disciples’ words to the breath or nature animating their demand.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To breathe or blow.
πνέω
This verb reveals the breath and moving air inside the word translated “spirit.”
pnoē: Breath or blowing.
πνοή
This related word keeps breath and spirit close, showing that the question concerns what animates a response.
THE PATTERN
The nature behind an impulse is disclosed by whether it meets opposition with destruction or with restraint and mercy.
He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.THE THREAD
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.The same Greek word, pneuma, names both “wind” and “Spirit” here, carrying breath and movement in one word. Luke’s rebuke asks what kind of breath animates a response; John shows that this breath cannot be reduced to a label.
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