What Does Luke 11:19 Mean?
And if I cast out demons through Beelzebub, by whom do your children cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges.
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 if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges.THE KEY
The accusation fails its own test: if casting out demons proves allegiance to Beelzebub in Jesus, the same verdict reaches the accusers’ own sons.
THE MEANING
This verse turns the charge back on those making it: if driving demons out marks Jesus as aligned with Beelzebub, the same act implicates their own sons. Their accepted practice becomes the measure that judges their accusation. The issue is not only what happens, but whose source they assign to it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a work is demonic when someone outside my circle does it, yet sound when my own circle does the same thing.
THE ROOT
ἐκβάλλω
ekballō
GROWS FROM
βαλλ-
ball-
throw, cast
“cast out” in this verse is ekballō. The shared βαλλ- (ball-, “throw, cast”) seed names the act, while ἐκ- (ek-, “out”) marks its direction. The word presents the demons’ departure as an expulsion, while the argument turns on who receives credit for that same act.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: throw or cast
βάλλω
The base action is a deliberate throwing; here the word describes the forceful removal itself.
apoballō: throw away or cast aside
ἀποβάλλω
This compound shows the same act directed away, echoing the outward movement in “cast out.”
ekbolē: the act of throwing out
ἐκβολή
The noun carries the same root into an act of expulsion, keeping the focus on what is thrown out rather than on who is credited with doing it.
κριταί
kritai
GROWS FROM
κριν-
krin-
distinguish, decide, judge
The word κριταί (kritai, “judges”) makes the sons adjudicators in the dispute. The κριν- (krin-, “decide, judge”) family links judgment to a decision made by a standard, and here the standard they already accept exposes the inconsistency.
ALSO GROWS
krinō: distinguish, decide, or judge
κρίνω
The verb names the act of reaching a decision that the sons now perform in the argument.
krisis: judgment or decision
κρίσις
This branch names the judgment itself, showing that the verse frames the sons’ practice as evidence in a case.
kritērion: a tribunal or standard by which judgment is made
κριτήριον
The word makes the judging standard visible: the accepted practice of the accusers’ own sons becomes the test of their claim.
THE PATTERN
Actions and judgments do not stay safely aimed outward; the standard or harm a person sets can loop back onto its source.
His toil turns back upon his head, and his violence comes down upon his skull.For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.Therefore you have no word to answer with, O human, whoever you are who judges others, for in whatever you judge in another you press the sentence down upon yourself, for you who judge practice the very same things.THE THREAD
But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the governance of God has come upon you.The next verse uses the same verb ἐκβάλλω (ekballō, “cast out”), but names the source as the finger of God. The action stays the same while its assigned source changes, making the dispute turn on attribution rather than outcome.
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