What Does Luke 16:27 Mean?
And he said, I ask you then, father, that you would send him to my father's house.
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
Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father’s house:THE KEY
The request is not for the dead to appear but for Lazarus to be dispatched as a warning into the speaker’s own household.
THE MEANING
The request imagines a messenger crossing from death into a family home. It gives voice to the urgent wish that a warning reach those closest to you. The surrounding exchange turns that wish toward the witness already within reach of the living.
THE ROOT
πέμψῃς
pempsēs
GROWS FROM
πέμπ-
pemp-
send, dispatch
“send” in this verse is pempsēs. The verb asks that Lazarus be dispatched to a destination, not merely appear. Its compounds specify the direction of that sending, making this a request for a messenger to cross into a particular household.
ALSO GROWS
ekpempō: send out
ἐκπέμπω
It keeps the same act of dispatching, with movement outward made explicit.
apopempō: send away, dismiss
ἀποπέμπω
It shows how the sending verb can carry someone away from the place where the request is made.
πατρός
patros
GROWS FROM
πατρ-
patr-
father, the source of a family line
The word for father branches into terms for both family lineage and homeland. Alongside “house,” it makes the destination more than an address: the plea reaches toward the speaker’s own kinship and belonging.
ALSO GROWS
patria: family, lineage
πατριά
It extends fatherhood into the family line the speaker wants warned.
patris: fatherland, native country
πατρίς
It carries the father-root into the place one belongs to.
οἶκον
oikon
GROWS FROM
οἰκ-
oik-
house, household
Oikos names both a physical house and the people who make up a household. Its word family reaches from household stewardship to the inhabited world, so the requested destination is one home within a wider human world.
ALSO GROWS
oikonomia: household management, stewardship
οἰκονομία
It shows the house as a lived sphere with people and responsibilities.
oikoumenē: the inhabited world
οἰκουμένη
It extends the house-root from one household toward the world people inhabit.
THE PATTERN
A plea for a message from far away is answered by the witness already near.
Abraham said to him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear and respond to them.But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.But what does it say? The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, the word of trust that we herald.THE THREAD
And he called out and said, Father Abraham, have compassion on me, and send Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger into water and cool my tongue, for I am pained in this flame.The same Greek verb, πέμπω (pempō), “send,” first appears in the request for Lazarus to relieve the speaker’s torment and returns here in the request to warn his family. The repeated verb shifts the destination from the speaker’s body to his father’s household, while Lazarus remains the one he imagines dispatched.
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