What Does Luke 11:30 Mean?
For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation.
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
For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, so shall also the Son of man be to this generation.THE KEY
Jonah is not only carrying the sign; Jonah himself becomes the visible message.
THE MEANING
A life can make a message visible: Jonah stands as a sign before Nineveh, and the Son of Man stands as a sign before each generation. The verse speaks now wherever someone meets a message embodied in a person; the encounter cannot be reduced to an idea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A sign must be a spectacle separate from its messenger; here, Jonah himself is the sign.
THE ROOT
σημεῖον
sēmeion
GROWS FROM
σημ-
sēm-
A mark or sign that makes something known.
The Greek word family joins the sign to the act of signifying: a mark makes meaning visible. Here, Jonah is that public mark, so the comparison presents the Son of Man as a message embodied in a person.
ALSO GROWS
sēma: A sign, mark, or token.
σῆμα
It shows the sign as a visible mark through which something becomes recognizable.
sēmainō: To indicate, signal, or signify.
σημαίνω
It reveals the sign’s work: making something known through what is seen.
THE PATTERN
A sign makes its message visible through the person who stands before a community.
And Jonah began to enter the city, a day's walk in, and he called out, and said, Still forty days, and Nineveh shall be overturned.Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for marks and for wonders in Israel, from the LORD of hosts, who pitches his tent on Mount Zion.And Simeon spoke good over them, and said to Mary his mother, Look, this one is laid for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against.THE THREAD
And Simeon spoke good over them, and said to Mary his mother, Look, this one is laid for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against.Luke uses the same Greek word σημεῖον (sēmeion, sign) for the child in Simeon’s words. That opens the Jonah comparison further: the sign is a person whose presence makes the message visible and draws a response.
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