What Does Luke 15:27 Mean?
And he said to him, "Your brother has come, and your father has slaughtered the grain-fed calf, because he has received him back whole."
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 him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound.THE KEY
In Greek, “safe and sound” names health: the father celebrates not just his son’s arrival, but his return in wholeness.
THE MEANING
The verse holds welcome and well-being together: the son is received back in health, and a feast follows. It speaks to you of a welcome that sees the whole person, where return means more than simply arriving.
THE ROOT
ὑγιαίνοντα
hygiainonta
GROWS FROM
ὑγι-
hyg-
healthy, sound, in good condition
“whole” in this verse is hygiainonta. The Greek word means “being healthy” or “sound.” English “safe and sound” preserves that sense, while the root brings the language of health into the father’s reception of his son: his return and well-being arrive together.
ALSO GROWS
hygiēs: healthy, sound
ὑγιής
In John 5:6, this word appears in the question “Wilt thou be made whole?” It shows the same word family describing a person’s bodily wholeness.
hygiainō: to be healthy, sound
ὑγιαίνω
The form in this verse comes from this verb, which also describes those who are “whole” and need no physician in Luke 5:31.
THE PATTERN
Restoration becomes visible when what was lost or impaired returns to life and health.
Who releases all your crookedness; who heals all your sicknesses.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.Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the nature of Jesus the Anointed One of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before your faces, sound.THE THREAD
Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the nature of Jesus the Anointed One of Nazareth, whom you crucified and whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before your faces, sound.The same Greek word family describes the son as healthy and the man in Acts as whole. In both verses, restored soundness is part of what others see when a person is received or stands before them.
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