What Does Luke 11:14 Mean?
He was casting out a demon, and it was mute. When the demon came out, the mute one spoke, and the crowds marveled.
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
And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered.THE KEY
Speech is revealed when the obstruction leaves; the voice does not have to be added.
THE MEANING
The verse shows a silenced capacity becoming audible when the demon departs. The voice appears with the obstruction gone, and the people witness the change.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Silence does not prove that no voice is there; it can mean that expression is obstructed.
THE ROOT
κωφός
kōphos
GROWS FROM
κωφ
kōph
Dull or blunted; used of deafness and muteness.
“mute” in this verse is kōphos. English “dumb” narrows the word to speech, while κωφός (kōphos) also carries the sense “deaf.” One Greek word holds together what English separates: blocked expression and blocked hearing.
ALSO GROWS
kōphos: Deaf; unable to hear.
κωφός
This sense shows that the word’s reach extends beyond speech, joining silence with impaired hearing.
kōphoō: To make deaf, mute, or dull.
κωφόω
The related verb carries the same idea of dulling or closing off a capacity, giving the muteness here a wider root-level context.
ἐκβάλλω
ekballō
GROWS FROM
βαλλ
ball
To throw or cast.
“casting out” in this verse is ekballō. The verb names an outward movement: something is cast out, and speech follows. The sequence makes release the turning point at which the silenced capacity becomes audible.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: To throw or cast.
βάλλω
This is the core action within ἐκβάλλω, the casting that makes the outward movement explicit.
ekbolē: A casting out or ejection.
ἐκβολή
This noun makes the same throwing-out action a thing in itself, echoing the demon’s departure before speech returns.
THE PATTERN
When an obstruction is removed, a capacity that seemed absent becomes visible in expression.
Lord, open my lips, and my mouth sets forth your praise.Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.And straightway his ears were opened, the bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke straight.THE THREAD
Then a man was brought to him who was held by a demon, blind and mute, and he healed him, so that the blind and mute both spoke and saw.Matthew’s “dumb” uses the same Greek word, κωφός (kōphos), as Luke’s. Its wider sense includes deafness, so the shared word gathers muted expression and impaired hearing into one image of capacity restored.
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