What Does Luke 15:8 Mean?
Or what woman, holding ten coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search with care until she finds it?
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
Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?THE KEY
A missing thing does not lose its worth; its absence sets the search in motion.
THE MEANING
When something in your life is missing, its absence does not make it worthless. The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and keeps searching until she finds the coin. The search stays active for as long as what is lost remains unfound.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what is lost is already beyond recovery, and therefore no longer worth seeking.
THE ROOT
ἀπολέσῃ
apolesē
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
apollymi
To lose, perish, or come to ruin.
“lose” in this verse is apolesē. The Greek word can describe both losing something and perishing, though here it means that the coin is missing. The woman’s response shows that being lost does not make it worthless: she keeps looking until it is found.
ALSO GROWS
apolōlos: Lost; Luke 19:10.
ἀπολωλός
The same root describes what is lost as the object of a search.
apolētai: Perish; John 3:16.
ἀπόληται
This branch carries the root’s more severe sense, showing the wider range behind the English word “lose.”
ἐπιζητεῖ
epizētei
GROWS FROM
ζητέω
zēteō
To seek, search for, or desire.
The verb is ἐπιζητέω, a form built on ζητέω, “to seek.” The woman’s search is directed toward finding what is missing, and the verse gives it a clear endpoint: she continues until she finds it.
ALSO GROWS
zēteite: Seek; Matthew 6:33.
ζητεῖτε
The same base verb presents seeking as purposeful pursuit.
epizētousin: They seek; Hebrews 11:14.
ἐπιζητοῦσιν
This related form uses the same compound verb for an ongoing search.
THE PATTERN
What is lost remains the object of a search that continues toward finding and restoration.
And the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, Where are you?I will seek the one who lost the way, and bring back the driven away, and bind up the broken, and hold up the sick. But the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with judgment.For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.THE THREAD
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.Luke 19:10 brings together the same two movements as this verse: seeking and what is lost. “Lost” comes from the same Greek root, ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi), linking the woman’s search for her coin with the search for what has gone astray.
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