What Does Luke 13:1 Mean?
Some who were present in that season told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
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
There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.THE KEY
The Greek word for “mingled” joins the Galilaeans’ blood and their sacrifices into one horrifying mixture.
THE MEANING
You hear of human blood mixed with sacrificial blood: violence enters the act of worship itself. The verse leaves brutality and sacred ritual in the same scene, without making the horror easier to look at.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that sacred rites keep violence outside is undone here: bloodshed is already present in the scene of worship.
THE ROOT
ἔμιξεν
emixen
GROWS FROM
μιγ-
mig-
to mix or mingle
“mixed” in this verse is emixen. The Greek verb makes this more than a report that two things happened together: it pictures them joined. Human blood and sacrificial blood become one horrifying mixture in the sentence.
ALSO GROWS
mígnymi: to mix or mingle
μίγνυμι
The verse’s verb is a form of this word, which names the act of bringing things together.
migma: a mixture or compound
μίγμα
This related noun names what mixing produces, sharpening the image of human blood and sacrificial blood joined in one scene.
θυσιῶν
thysiōn
GROWS FROM
θυ-
thy-
to offer in sacrifice, including the slaughter of an offering
The noun for “sacrifices” belongs to the family of θύω (thyō, “to offer in sacrifice or slaughter for sacrifice”). This shared word-family places Pilate’s killing beside a ritual act already marked by the taking of life.
ALSO GROWS
thyō: to offer sacrifice or slaughter for sacrifice
θύω
The noun in the verse grows from this verb family, which keeps the bodily act of sacrifice in view.
thysiastērion: altar, a place of sacrifice
θυσιαστήριον
This related word carries the sacrificial family into the place of offering, deepening the collision between worship and bloodshed in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Scripture places bloodshed alongside worship to expose how violence can enter the very acts and spaces marked as sacred.
When you spread your palms, I will shut my eyes to you. Even when you multiply your prayers, I will not hear and respond. Your hands are filled with blood.So that upon you may come all the aligned blood poured out upon the earth, from the blood of the aligned Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.THE THREAD
The first messenger sounds, and there comes hail and fire mixed with blood, and they are thrown upon the earth; and the third part of the trees is burned down, and all green grass is burned down.Luke uses ἔμιξεν (emixen, “mingled”) from μίγνυμι (mígnymi, “to mix or mingle”); Revelation uses the same verb family in μεμιγμένα (memigmena, “mingled”) for hail and fire joined with blood. The shared root makes the violence in Luke’s image harder to separate from what surrounds it.
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