What Does Luke 9:61 Mean in the King James?
And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.
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
He offers a real yes to following, but places one last departure from home before it.
THE MEANING
The sentence holds two motions at once: a present promise to follow and a request to leave home before that promise becomes movement. Attachment enters not as refusal, but as a condition placed ahead of the path.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that sincere intention has already crossed the threshold gives way here: “I will follow” and actually leaving still occupy different moments.
THE ROOT
ἀποτάξασθαι
apotaxasthai
GROWS FROM
τάσσω
To arrange, appoint, or set in order.
The verb for “bid farewell” is built from apo- (“away, from”) and tassō, “arrange” or “set in order.” The goodbye carries the added sense of taking leave, making a separation, so the verse’s tension lies in the departure he asks to place before following.
ALSO GROWS
taxis: Order, arrangement.
τάξις
It shares the root sense of things being placed in order, echoing the sequence the speaker proposes: first a parting, then following.
diatassō: Arrange, direct, prescribe.
διατάσσω
This branch carries the sense of arranging what comes next, illuminating how the speaker places a leave-taking ahead of his promised movement.
THE PATTERN
A forward call exposes where attention remains when the old home is still within reach.
And he left the oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, Let me, I pray thee, kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow thee. And he said unto him, Go back again: for what have I done to thee?But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,THE THREAD
And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.The next line turns the requested goodbye into the image of a plough: the work advances with the gaze directed forward. It makes the condition in verse 61 visible as a question of divided direction, not simply a spoken farewell.
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