What Does Luke 11:39 Mean?
And the Lord said to him, Now you, the separated ones, make clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but your inside is full of plunder and evil.
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 the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness.THE KEY
A polished vessel can still be filled with plunder: the deepest uncleanness here is what a person takes while appearing clean.
THE MEANING
This verse sees the gap between an immaculate surface and what fills a person within. The inward fullness Jesus names is rapacity and wickedness: taking from others beneath an appearance of cleanliness. The warning speaks wherever visible religious care sits beside inward exploitation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a clean outward religious appearance proves the person within is clean.
THE ROOT
ἁρπαγῆς
harpagēs
GROWS FROM
ἁρπ-
harp-
To seize or snatch; the word here means plunder or rapacity.
“plunder” in this verse is harpagēs. The word rendered “ravening” names a taking by seizure, not just an abstract flaw. Its word family also names the act of snatching and the robber, so the vessel is filled with predation beneath its clean surface.
ALSO GROWS
harpazō: To seize or snatch away.
ἁρπάζω
It makes the force in “ravening” concrete: something is taken from another.
harpax: A robber or rapacious person.
ἅρπαξ
The same word family describes the one who takes, sharpening the contrast between outward cleanliness and inward predation.
καθαρίζετε
katharizete
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean or pure; καθαρίζετε means “you cleanse” or “you make clean.”
“make clean” in this verse is katharizete. The same word family names both being clean and the act of cleansing. Set beside the inner plunder, the verse exposes how cleaning the outside can coexist with an inward life that remains harmful.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean or pure.
καθαρός
This is the quality the Pharisees make visible on the cup and platter.
katharismos: Cleansing or purification.
καθαρισμός
It shares the cleansing family, highlighting the gap between an outward act of cleaning and the inward contents Jesus names.
THE PATTERN
Outward appearance cannot certify the state of the inward life.
But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have pushed him away. The LORD does not see as the human sees. The human sees what is outside, but the LORD sees the heart.Behold, you delight in truth in the inward parts; and in the sealed place you make me perceive wisdom.If anyone among you seems to be devout, not bridling his tongue but deceiving his own heart, this one's service is empty.THE THREAD
Woe to you, writers and separated ones, masked ones! For you make clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but within they are filled from grasping and from what has no grip.Matthew uses the same Greek word, ἁρπαγῆς (harpagēs, plunder or rapacity), that Luke renders “ravening,” here translated “extortion.” The parallel makes the inward condition concrete: taking from others beneath a clean exterior.
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