What Does Luke 14:4 Mean?
But they kept still. And he took hold of him, and healed him, and let him go.
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 they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go;THE KEY
The same man is both healed and released, so the cure ends by returning him to freedom.
THE MEANING
The verse shows restoration as a whole movement: the man is taken in hand, healed, and then released. For you now, its sequence joins wholeness with freedom from what has held a person.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a cure is enough even while the person remains bound: the verse joins healing to release.
THE ROOT
ἀπέλυσεν
apélysen
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, unbind, or release.
“let him go” in this verse is apélysen. The English phrase can sound like permission to depart; ἀπέλυσεν (apélysen, he released or sent away) carries the sense of release. It is distinct from ἰάσατο (iásato, he healed), so the verse holds healing and release as two acts in one restoration.
ALSO GROWS
lýsis: Loosening; release.
λύσις
This branch names the undoing of a bond, showing the unbinding beneath the man’s release.
apólysis: Release; dismissal.
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun carries the same motion of sending someone away free, matching the verse’s final act.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness appears as release: what is healed is also freed to move on.
He sends his word and heals them, and slips them free from their pits.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?THE THREAD
When Jesus saw her, he called her to him and said to her, "Woman, you have been unbound from your weakness."Luke 13:12 makes the release in this verse explicit: the woman is loosed from her infirmity. Both verses use ἀπολύω (apolýō, release or send away), linking the man’s release after healing with release from affliction.
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