What Does Luke 17:13 Mean?
And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, show us faithful love.
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 they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.THE KEY
They ask for mercy from the one whose name carries deliverance, so the cry already points toward release.
THE MEANING
Your need is allowed to speak aloud, and you address Jesus, Master, with a direct request for mercy. The appeal offers no proof of worthiness; it names distress and asks for compassion. The cry moves from being enclosed in need toward being met.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that compassion can be requested only after proving your worth; here, the appeal begins with need itself.
THE ROOT
ἐλέησον
eleēson
GROWS FROM
ἐλε-
Show compassion; act mercifully.
“show us faithful love” in this verse is eleēson. The imperative ἐλέησον belongs to the same Greek word family as ἔλεος, mercy, and ἐλεήμων, compassionate. The plea reaches toward compassion taking form in response, not merely a benevolent feeling.
ALSO GROWS
eleos: mercy, compassion
ἔλεος
The noun names the compassion the speakers ask to receive.
eleēmōn: compassionate, merciful
ἐλεήμων
This related word describes the character expressed when mercy is shown.
eleēmosynē: almsgiving, an act of mercy
ἐλεημοσύνη
It shows the word family extending from compassion to its expression in action.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēshūaʿ
GROWS FROM
ישע
Deliver; bring out of constriction into spaciousness.
The Greek address names Jesus; the Hebrew name Yeshua carries the root of deliverance. The cry for mercy is directed toward the one whose name itself points toward being brought out of distress.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: to deliver, bring to safety
יָשַׁע
This verb supplies the root meaning carried in the name.
yeshuah: deliverance
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the movement from danger or constriction into safety.
moshiaʿ: deliverer, one who brings to safety
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This branch names the one who carries out the deliverance the name evokes.
THE PATTERN
A cry from distress is voiced directly to the one whose response can meet it.
And the LORD said, I have surely seen the bending low of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their drivers. For I know their pains.This bowed one cries out, and the LORD hears him, and brings him out of all his narrow places.When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have compassion on me.THE THREAD
And he cried out, saying, Jesus, Son of David, show me faithful love!Luke 18:38 repeats the same Greek appeal, ἐλέησον (eleēson), but here one person cries where Luke 17:13 has a group. Both voices ask for compassion from Jesus, making the shared word the thread between their pleas.
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