What Does Luke 16:20 Mean?
And there was a certain emptied beggar named Lazarus, who had been thrown down at his gate, drawn open with sores.
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 there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,THE KEY
A man whose name means “God helps” has been placed at a household’s threshold, where that name stands beside suffering in plain sight.
THE MEANING
An injured person lies at the edge of another household, visible and dependent. Lazarus carries the name-sense “God helps,” while the suffering remains exposed. Need and the language of help stand together in the same frame.
THE ROOT
ἐβέβλητο
ebeblēto
GROWS FROM
βαλ
bal
throw, cast, put or place
The word translated “laid” is a passive form from the βάλλω family of casting and placing. It gives the man’s location a force beyond a neutral backdrop, while leaving unnamed who placed him there.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: throw, cast, put or place
βάλλω
This is the verb behind the verse’s passive form and makes placement part of the image.
bolē: a throwing, cast or projectile
βολή
Its βολ- form shares the β–λ consonantal family and preserves the sense of casting.
blēma: something thrown, a missile
βλῆμα
This related form names what is cast, keeping the same root family in view.
אֶלְעָזָר
Elʿazar Greek
GROWS FROM
עזר
ʿ-z-r
help, support, aid
Lazarus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Elʿazar, “God helps,” built with the root עזר for help. That help-language stands beside an injured body still at the threshold, holding need and the name’s meaning together without explaining the gap.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāzar: help, aid, support
עָזַר
This verb supplies the root meaning carried in the name Elʿazar.
ʿēzer: help, aid
עֵזֶר
This noun shows the same root naming the support that the name invokes.
πυλῶνα
pylōna
GROWS FROM
πυλ
pyl
gate, entrance or gateway
“gate” in this verse is pylōna. The word πυλών names a gateway or entrance, placing the wounded man at the boundary between a household’s inside and outside. The threshold makes the social distance concrete without telling us how anyone responds.
ALSO GROWS
pylē: gate, entrance
πύλη
This closely related form names the opening that separates and connects the spaces.
pylōros: gatekeeper
πυλωρός
This word from the πυλ- family names a person associated with the gateway, sharpening the sense of a threshold that can be watched or crossed.
THE PATTERN
A boundary reveals its character by where it places the person in need and whether it opens toward them.
If there is among you one in want, from one of your brothers, within any of your gates in the land the LORD your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand from your brother, the one in want.And you look upon the one who wears shining clothing, and say to him, Sit here well; and say to the emptied one, Stand there, or sit here beneath my footstool.THE THREAD
And saying, Lord, my servant lies at home, loosened and racked with grievous torment.Luke’s ἐβέβλητο and Matthew’s βέβληται both come from βάλλω, “cast, place.” Both describe a vulnerable body through where it lies; in Matthew, someone speaks for the immobilized servant, while Luke leaves Lazarus at the gate.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us