What Does Luke 17:14 Mean?
And when he saw them, he said to them, Go, present yourselves to the priests. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed.
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 when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.THE KEY
Cleansing reaches them before the priests can confirm it, while they are still on the way.
THE MEANING
A change can meet you while you are still on the way to be seen: here, cleansing reaches the men before they arrive for inspection. The verse holds that change as real before anyone else confirms it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You must be visibly restored before you can move toward recognition.
THE ROOT
ἐκαθαρίσθησαν
ekatharisthēsan
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean, pure; the verb means to make clean.
“cleansed” in this verse is ekatharisthēsan. The καθαρ- family carries both the state of being clean and the act of making clean. Here the verb names a real change taking hold along the road, before the priests can confirm what has happened.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean, pure
καθαρός
The adjective shares the root’s clean/pure sense, showing that cleansing is a change into cleanness.
katharismos: Cleansing, purification
καθαρισμός
This noun names the same root as a process, illuminating cleansing as something that happens, not merely a status pronounced.
THE PATTERN
Cleansing can be a real change before it is seen or formally recognized.
Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.And straightway, as he spoke, the scaling went away from him, and he was cleansed.If we speak our shortcomings into the open, he is steady and aligned, to release our shortcomings, and to cleanse us from all crookedness.THE THREAD
And straightway, as he spoke, the scaling went away from him, and he was cleansed.Mark uses the same Greek verb, καθαρίζω (katharizō), meaning to cleanse or make clean. There the cleansing is immediate; here the same root places it along the road, holding both sudden change and change discovered in motion.
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