What Does Luke 13:11 Mean?
And look, there was a woman who had a breath of weakness for eighteen years, and she was folded together and could not straighten herself at all.
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, behold, there was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself.THE KEY
Her inability to rise is named plainly, without being mistaken for unwillingness.
THE MEANING
A condition can hold a body bent for years, beyond its own strength to straighten. The verse speaks plainly about that limit: she cannot lift herself. The inability is real; it is not presented as a failure of effort.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a person’s inability to rise proves a lack of effort: the verse says she cannot lift herself.
THE ROOT
ἀσθένεια
astheneia
GROWS FROM
σθεν-
sthen-
Strength; the prefix a- makes astheneia a state of lacking strength.
The Greek word names weakness as an absence of strength, and the verse makes that concrete: she cannot lift herself. The language describes her limitation without turning it into a failure of will.
ALSO GROWS
asthenēs: weak, without strength
ἀσθενής
It shares the same word family and makes clear that infirmity describes a condition of diminished strength.
astheneō: to be weak or without strength
ἀσθενέω
This verb carries the same root into an experience: the inability the verse describes is a state, not a choice.
sthenos: strength
σθένος
The root names the strength that astheneia lacks, illuminating why she cannot raise herself.
πνεῦμα
pneuma
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breath or blowing, from πνέω (pneō), to breathe or blow.
The Greek word translated “spirit” also carries the sense of breath. English can separate spirit from bodily life, but the verse places pneuma beside a body bent by infirmity, keeping the inner affliction and its bodily effect in the same picture.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: to breathe or blow
πνέω
This verb is the source of the word family and shows the breath sense within pneuma.
pnoē: breath or blowing
πνοή
This related noun makes the shared breath language visible beneath the English rendering “spirit.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture names bodily helplessness plainly and shows the LORD raising or restoring those who are bowed down.
The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; the LORD straightens the bent; the LORD loves the aligned.When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, "Woman, you have been unbound from your weakness."And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus the Anointed One makes you whole. Stand up, and spread out your mat. And at once he stood up.THE THREAD
When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, "Woman, you have been unbound from your weakness."“Infirmity” translates the same Greek word, ἀσθένεια (astheneia), in both verses. Here the word names what has bent her; in the next verse, Jesus says she is loosed from that very infirmity, making the release specific.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us