What Does Luke 14:19 Mean?
And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them. I ask you, hold me excused.
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 another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.THE KEY
The oxen are already bought, yet testing them takes priority over the open invitation, turning a respectable task into a refusal.
THE MEANING
A worthwhile responsibility can still become a way of declining an open table. The reader sees the man focused on verifying what he owns while the shared meal is waiting now. His polite request for an excuse leaves the refusal unmistakable.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that a respectable reason stops being a refusal; here, asking to be excused is itself part of declining the invitation.
THE ROOT
δοκιμάσαι
dokimasai
GROWS FROM
δοκιμ-
dokim-
Test, examine, and approve as genuine.
“try them” in this verse is dokimasai. The verb δοκιμάζω (dokimazō, test and approve) carries the sense of examining something to discern its quality. The oxen receive that scrutiny while the invitation is left waiting, so the verse places the work of verifying a purchase beside the choice to decline the feast.
ALSO GROWS
dokimos: tested and approved
δόκιμος
It names what has passed examination, bringing out the approving judgment contained in “prove.”
dokimē: testing or proof
δοκιμή
It names the process of examination that occupies the speaker before he accepts the invitation.
παραιτέομαι
paraiteomai
GROWS FROM
αἰτε-
aite-
Ask or request; in παραιτέομαι, ask to be excused or decline.
The Greek verb παραιτέομαι (paraiteomai, ask to be excused or decline) carries the sense of making a request to be released from something. The deferential wording does not change the action: the speaker asks to be excused from the invitation.
ALSO GROWS
aiteō: ask or request
αἰτέω
This verb is the asking at the heart of the request to be excused.
aitēma: request or petition
αἴτημα
This noun shows the root’s movement from asking to the request itself.
THE PATTERN
Material concerns can claim attention until they crowd out what is offered.
And they all, as one, began to beg off. The first said to him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I am bound to go out and see it. I ask you, hold me excused.And the cares of this age, and the deceit of riches, and the hungers for other things, going in, choke the word, and it becomes fruitless.The lover of silver is not filled with silver, and the lover of the crowd is not filled with the harvest. This too is vapor.THE THREAD
Test everything, and hold fast to what is good.“Prove” here is the same Greek verb δοκιμάζω (dokimazō, test and approve) used for the speaker’s testing of the oxen. Luke shows that scrutiny directed toward a possession while the feast waits; this verse uses the same word for testing all things and holding fast to what is good.
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