What Does Luke 13:12 Mean?
When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, "Woman, you have been unbound from your weakness."
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 when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.THE KEY
The Greek speaks her release as accomplished, with the released state continuing now.
THE MEANING
You are seen, called near, and addressed with a sentence of release. The weakness is real, but it does not define the whole of you: the verse speaks of it as something from which you are freed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that infirmity gets to become your permanent name.
THE ROOT
ἀπολέλυσαι
apolelysai
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
loose, untie, release
“unbound” in this verse is apolelysai. ἀπολέλυσαι (apolelysai, “you have been released”) joins ἀπό (“away, from”) to λύω (lyō, “loose”); its perfect form presents release as accomplished with the released state continuing now. Its branches keep the same λυ family: release is an undoing of what holds. The speaker’s name deepens the scene: Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous, Jesus) carries Hebrew יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua, deliverance), from יָשַׁע (yashaʿ, deliver from constriction into spaciousness).
ALSO GROWS
lyō: to loose, untie, release
λύω
This is the verb at the center of ἀπολέλυσαι; the release begins with undoing what binds.
apolysis: release, dismissal
ἀπόλυσις
This related form names release or departure, showing the family’s sense of being sent away from a restraint.
katalyō: loosen down, dismantle
καταλύω
The same λυ family can describe taking apart what holds together; what constrains can be undone.
ἀσθενείᾳ
astheneia
GROWS FROM
σθεν-
sthen-
strength, vigor
“weakness” in this verse is astheneia. ἀσθένεια (astheneia, “infirmity”) belongs to the σθεν- (sthen-, “strength”) family with privative ἀ-, carrying the sense of lacking strength. The sentence names the condition plainly, then speaks of release from it without making it her identity.
ALSO GROWS
sthenos: strength, vigor
σθένος
This noun shows the strength carried inside the word family that ἀσθένεια negates.
asthenēs: weak, lacking strength
ἀσθενής
The adjective makes explicit the weakness named by the verse’s “infirmity.”
astheneō: be weak, be sick
ἀσθενέω
This verb describes the state itself, which the verse presents as something from which release is possible.
THE PATTERN
Release exposes bondage as something that can be loosened, so the bound person is not identical with what binds them.
Is this not the fast I have chosen, to open the bonds of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to send the crushed away free, and to tear away every yoke?Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.Jesus’ command “Loose him” is λύσατε (lysate, “loose”), from the same Greek root λύω (lyō, “loose”) carried in ἀπολέλυσαι (apolelysai, “you have been released”). Luke speaks release directly to a woman; John shows others removing the bindings so a released person can move.
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