What Does Luke 13:27 Mean?
And he will say, "I say to you, I do not know where you are from. Stand away from me, all you workers of crookedness."
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
But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.THE KEY
The verse joins origin to action: those the speaker cannot recognize by where they come from are named by the injustice their work produces.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks a hard truth now: nearness to the threshold does not itself establish belonging; the speaker links unrecognized origin with the work of injustice. What a person’s work produces becomes part of what reveals where they belong.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Religious claims or nearness alone guarantee recognition, regardless of the injustice my work produces.
THE ROOT
ἀδικίας
adikías
GROWS FROM
δίκη (dikē), with privative ἀ- (a-)
Dikē names what is just or right; the prefix a- marks its absence, so adikia means injustice or what is out of right relation.
“crookedness” in this verse is adikías. “Iniquity” can sound like an invisible stain, but the Greek names injustice made visible in practice: these are workers of it. The word points to justice as the measure their work misses.
ALSO GROWS
dikaios: just, right
δίκαιος
This related word names the quality adikia lacks, sharpening the contrast between just action and injustice.
dikaiosynē: justice, righteousness, alignment
δικαιοσύνη
This word from the same family names the alignment that adikia departs from.
ἀπόστητε
apóstēte
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι (histēmi), with ἀπό (apo, away)
Histēmi means to stand or set; with apo, the command means to stand away or withdraw.
The command to depart carries the sense of separation in its very form: stand away. It follows the naming of injustice with a concrete removal from the speaker’s presence.
ALSO GROWS
histēmi: stand, set
ἵστημι
The base verb gives “depart” the image of a changed stance or position.
apostasis: departure, withdrawal
ἀπόστασις
This related noun names the same movement away that the command enacts.
THE PATTERN
What a life is rooted in becomes visible through what its work repeatedly produces.
Even a child is known by his deeds, whether his work is clean, and whether it runs straight.For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.In this the children of God are visible, and so are the children of the Slanderer. Everyone who does not do alignment is not out of God, and neither is the one who does not love his brother.THE THREAD
And then I will declare to them, I never knew you; withdraw from me, you who live without boundary.Matthew uses the same Greek word, ἀδικία (adikia, injustice), for the work named here. It joins nonrecognition, departure, and practiced injustice in the same sequence, making clear that the work is central to the verdict.
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