What Does Luke 15:21 Mean?
And the son said to him, "Father, I have missed the mark against the heavens and before your face, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son."
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 the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.THE KEY
His confession names the missing, but he still says “Father”, failure has not erased the relationship even before the father answers.
THE MEANING
You can name where you have missed without pretending the harm is nothing. But the verdict that failure makes you no longer worthy to be called a child is not the same as the father’s verdict on who you are. Even in this confession, the word “Father” remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that because you have failed, you have ceased to belong as a child.
THE ROOT
ἥμαρτον
hēmarton
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss, err, or fail; ἥμαρτον is a form of ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō), “to miss” or “to err.”
“missed the mark” in this verse is hēmarton. The confession names a real missing, then the speaker turns it into a verdict about his worth. The word family names the failure; it does not itself say that the relationship has vanished.
ALSO GROWS
hamartia: Missing, failure; also rendered “sin.”
ἁμαρτία
It is the noun from the same word family, keeping the focus on the missing he confesses.
hamartēma: A fault or offense.
ἁμάρτημα
This branch names a particular wrong, echoing the speaker’s direct admission without deciding what he is worth.
Πάτερ
Pater
GROWS FROM
πατρ-
patr-
Father; the root also carries the sense of ancestor or paternal origin.
The speaker addresses him as Father in the same breath as he declares himself unworthy of sonship. The address preserves the relationship in the very moment his guilt says it is lost.
ALSO GROWS
patria: Family or lineage.
πατριά
The father-root extends into the language of kinship, placing the address within a family relationship.
patrōios: Ancestral or paternal.
πατρῷος
This branch carries the father-root into what comes from a father, echoing the son’s plea to the one he still calls Father.
THE PATTERN
A parent’s claim can outlast a child’s verdict that failure has made belonging impossible.
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God, and we are. Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know him.THE THREAD
For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.The son gives his own verdict: no longer worthy to be called a son. The father answers with “my son,” naming the relationship that the son’s guilt has already judged lost.
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