What Does Luke 14:5 Mean?
And he said to them, Which of you, if your son or your ox falls into a pit, will not straightway draw him up on the Sabbath day?
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 answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?THE KEY
The Sabbath’s meaning is revealed by the life you refuse to leave trapped.
THE MEANING
When a living creature is in danger, the impulse to free it rises even on a day set apart for rest. The verse shows that rescue belongs inside the meaning of that day: rest can hold the act of drawing life out of danger.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that honoring a sacred day requires letting a trapped creature suffer until the day is over.
THE ROOT
ἀνασπάσει
anaspasei
GROWS FROM
σπάω
to pull or draw
“draw him up” in this verse is anaspasei. English “pull out” gives the action, while the Greek compound pictures drawing upward from the pit: ἀνά adds “up” to σπάω, “pull.” The same root appears in words for drawing something away, so the root names the motion while its direction and object show whether it frees or separates.
ALSO GROWS
anaspaō: draw up, pull out
ἀνασπάω
This is the verb’s dictionary form; its upward direction fits the animal being drawn from the pit.
apospáō: draw away, detach
ἀποσπάω
It shares the σπάω root, showing how the same drawing motion can separate rather than rescue.
σαββάτου
sabbatou
GROWS FROM
σαββατ-
Sabbath; the day set apart for rest
Luke’s Greek carries the Sabbath name as a loanword, and related Greek forms name both keeping Sabbath and Sabbath-rest. That word-family frames the question of what rest holds when a creature is trapped.
ALSO GROWS
sabbatizō: keep the Sabbath
σαββατίζω
It shares the Sabbath stem and names the observance that frames the question.
sabbatismos: Sabbath rest
σαββατισμός
This related form carries the same word-family into the idea of rest itself.
THE PATTERN
A creature’s need remains visible and weighty even when rules, work, or convenience crowd it.
You shall not see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen along the way, and hide yourself from them. You shall surely stand them up with him.The aligned perceives the living soul of his beast, but the compassions of the wicked are cruel.For it is written in the instruction of Moses, You shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treads out the grain. Does God care for oxen?THE THREAD
And this was done three times, and everything was drawn up again into heaven.Luke’s verb for pulling the animal from the pit belongs to the same ἀνασπάω word-family as “drawn up” here. In both verses, the word pictures something being pulled upward from a lower place.
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