What Does Luke 1:53 Mean?
He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.THE KEY
The verse overturns possession as proof of fullness: the hungry are filled, while the rich leave empty.
THE MEANING
Your hunger does not put you beyond good things; here, it is met with fullness. The verse also shows that wealth cannot secure fullness: the rich are sent away empty. Abundance arrives as something received, not guaranteed by what you possess.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that having more means you are already full, or that lacking means nothing good can reach you.
THE ROOT
ἐνέπλησεν
eneplēsen
GROWS FROM
πληθ-
plēth-
To fill, make full, or bring to fullness.
“filled” in this verse is eneplēsen. This verb carries the sense of filling up, and its word-family can describe abundance as a multitude. The hungry receive more than a token portion: the image is of fullness gathered around them.
ALSO GROWS
plēthō: To be full or abound.
πλήθω
It carries the verse’s movement from hunger into fullness.
plēthos: A multitude, a great number.
πλῆθος
It shows how this word-family connects fullness with abundance.
plēthynō: To increase or multiply.
πληθύνω
It extends fullness into increase, fitting the image of good things given in abundance.
κενούς
kenous
GROWS FROM
κεν-
ken-
Empty, void, or lacking content.
“sent away empty” in this verse is kenous. This word-family can name actual emptiness and hollowness beneath an appearance of honor. Here, wealth does not keep its holders from being sent away without fullness.
ALSO GROWS
kenoō: To empty or make void.
κενόω
It turns emptiness from a condition into an action, a connection echoed in the thread verse.
kenodoxia: Empty glory or vainglory.
κενοδοξία
It joins emptiness with outward honor, sharpening the verse’s contrast between wealth and fullness.
THE PATTERN
God answers hunger with fullness while overturning the assumption that existing abundance guarantees it.
For he sates the thirsting living soul, and fills the hungry living soul with goodness.Those who are full hire themselves out for bread, and the hungry stop until the barren one bears seven; and she who has many children withers.Flourishing are the hungering now, for you will be filled. Flourishing are the weeping now, for you will laugh.THE THREAD
But he emptied himself, taking the shape of a servant, and became in the likeness of humankind.Luke’s κενός (kenos, “empty”) and Philippians’ κενόω (kenoō, “empty” or “make void”) share the same root. Luke names the rich leaving empty; Philippians describes Christ emptying himself, setting a reversal of status beside chosen self-emptying without making them the same event.
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