What Does Luke 13:32 Mean?
And he said to them, "Go and say to that fox, Look, I throw out demons and I finish healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I am brought to my end."
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 he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.THE KEY
The Greek ties the healings he brings about to the same goal-root as his own completion: the work already underway belongs to the finish.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where opposition demands an immediate ending: demons are cast out and healing happens today and tomorrow, while the work continues toward its goal. Wholeness is already moving into the present before the whole path reaches completion.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
An unfinished work is not a failed work; “not complete yet” does not mean “nothing is being healed now.”
THE ROOT
τελειοῦμαι
teleioumai
GROWS FROM
τελ- (tel-), the family of τέλος (telos)
End, goal, the point at which a process reaches its intended completion.
“brought to my end” in this verse is teleioumai. Here “perfected” is τελειοῦμαι (teleioumai, “I am brought to completion”); the healing clause says ἀποτελῶ (apotelō, “I accomplish” or “bring about”). The shared τελ- family makes the healing work itself part of the movement toward the stated goal.
ALSO GROWS
telos: End, goal, intended completion.
τέλος
This is the root’s clearest seed: the third day is the goal toward which the work moves.
apoteleō: Bring about, accomplish, carry through.
ἀποτελέω
Luke uses its form ἀποτελῶ (apotelō) for “do” in “I do cures,” echoing the completion-family in “I shall be perfected.”
ἰάσεις
iaseis
GROWS FROM
ἰα- (ia-), from ἰάομαι (iaomai)
Heal, cure.
“cures” in this verse is iaseis. The Greek noun is plural: ἰάσεις (iaseis, “healings”). It names specific healings in the present stream of the work, rather than making healing only a future outcome.
ALSO GROWS
iaomai: Heal, cure.
ἰάομαι
The verb behind the noun makes “cures” part of an active process of healing.
iatros: Physician, healer.
ἰατρός
The related word names the one who heals, linking the act of healing with the person carrying it out.
THE PATTERN
A work can be active along its path and still be moving toward a definite completion.
The LORD finishes what concerns me; your faithful love, O LORD, endures for the ages; do not let the works of your hands drop.Being confident of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will finish it until the day of Jesus the Anointed One.When Jesus had taken the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head, and handed over his breath.THE THREAD
For it fit him, for whom all things are and through whom all things are, in leading many sons into being clothed in weight, to make complete, through sufferings, the captain of their deliverance.Hebrews says the captain is made perfect through suffering; the Greek is τελειῶσαι (teleiōsai, “to bring to completion”), from the same τελ- family. It opens Luke’s line as a passage toward its intended goal, with healing already happening along that path.
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