What Does Luke 12:18 Mean?
And he said, This I will do. I will pull down my storehouses and build larger ones, and there I will gather my grain and my good things.
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 said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.THE KEY
He answers abundance by building a larger place to store it, as though a bigger container could secure his future.
THE MEANING
The verse catches the instant when abundance turns into a storage plan: what has come forth is gathered and named “mine,” and the answer to having enough is a larger container. The plan can organize possessions, but it cannot make the future belong to the one who stores them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough stored wealth can secure the life of the one who owns it.
THE ROOT
γεννήματά
gennēmata
GROWS FROM
γεννάω
gennaō
To beget or bring forth.
“grain” in this verse is gennēmata. The Greek word names what has been brought forth, keeping the harvest’s coming into being visible beneath the English word “fruits.” He gathers these products and calls them his, turning what has come forth into stored possession.
ALSO GROWS
gennēma: Offspring; something brought forth or produced.
γέννημα
The harvest is named as what has come forth, not simply as an object sitting in a storehouse.
genea: Generation; lineage.
γενεά
It extends the same language of coming forth to what emerges in succession.
ἀποθήκας
apothēkas
GROWS FROM
τίθημι
tithēmi
To put, place, or set.
The Greek word means storehouses: places for putting things away. His response to abundance is to enlarge the place where it will be held, making storage the center of his plan.
ALSO GROWS
apotithēmi: To lay aside or put away.
ἀποτίθημι
This verb shares the sense of placing something away for later, the action built into a storehouse.
thēkē: A case, container, or repository.
θήκη
It names a place or object that holds something, keeping the focus on containment.
THE PATTERN
Stored abundance can grow in size while remaining unable to secure the life that depends on it.
There is a sickening harm I have seen under the sun, wealth guarded for its owners to their harm.Do not store up for yourselves treasures upon the ground, where moth and rust gnaw them out of sight, and where thieves dig through and steal.Charge those who are rich in this age, that they not be lifted high in mind, nor set their hope on uncertain riches, but upon the living God, who holds out to us richly all things to feast on.THE THREAD
And he said to them, Watch, and guard yourselves against grasping, for a person's life does not lie in the overflow of what they hold.Verse 15 states the hinge that verse 18 dramatizes: possessing more does not make a life more secure or complete. The larger barns give physical shape to the belief that abundance can equal life.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us