What Does Luke 12:53 Mean?
The father will be split apart against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law.
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
The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.THE KEY
The division is a portioning: the closest family bonds are split into opposing sides.
THE MEANING
The fracture named here runs through the bonds a household expects to hold: parent and child, then each side of a marriage. A dividing allegiance can leave people bound by family and yet set against one another.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that family bonds guarantee shared allegiance is undone here: the division reaches both parent and child, and both sides of an in-law bond.
THE ROOT
διαμερισθήσονται
diameristhēsontai
GROWS FROM
μερίζω
merizō
To divide or distribute into parts.
“split apart” in this verse is diameristhēsontai. The verb carries the sense of something portioned out. The family pairs show the split cutting through relationships that ordinarily belong to one household.
ALSO GROWS
meros: part, share
μέρος
A household is divided into parts: people who remain family now stand on opposing sides.
merismos: division, distribution
μερισμός
This related noun names the division itself, making the split a concrete dividing of people into sides.
THE PATTERN
A dividing allegiance can turn the closest household bonds into opposing sides.
For the son sets the father at nothing, the daughter rises against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.For I came to split a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.Do you suppose that I came to give wholeness on the earth? No, I say to you, but rather a splitting apart.THE THREAD
Do you suppose that I came to give wholeness on the earth? No, I say to you, but rather a splitting apart.Luke 12:51 uses διαμερισμός (diamerismos, “division”), from the same μερίζω (merizō, “divide or portion”) root as διαμερισθήσονται (diameristhēsontai, “they will be divided”) here. Verse 51 names the split; verse 53 shows it passing through parents, children, and marriages.
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