What Does Luke 17:23 Mean?
And they will say to you, See there! See here! Do not go after them, nor pursue them.
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 shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them.THE KEY
The hidden danger is borrowed pursuit: a voice names a place and tries to move you toward it.
THE MEANING
A voice can make the presence of the Son sound like a location you might miss. The verse names the pressure plainly: it calls for movement, first setting out and then pursuing, while giving no warrant for either. It exposes how urgency can be mistaken for evidence.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a confident claim about where the Son is must be chased, or his presence will be missed.
THE ROOT
διώκω
diōkō
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
Pursue or chase after.
“pursue” in this verse is diōkō. The Greek verb behind “follow” belongs to the same word family as persecution and persecutor. English “follow” can sound like ordinary accompaniment, but here the word reveals how a location claim turns attention into a chase, and the verse blocks that chase at its start.
ALSO GROWS
diōgmos: Persecution; pursuit directed against someone.
διωγμός
This branch shows the force that can hide inside “follow”: pursuit can press upon its target.
diōktēs: A pursuer or persecutor.
διώκτης
The same word family can name the one who chases, exposing how a compelling voice can set pursuit in motion.
THE PATTERN
The presence of the Son is not authenticated by rumor or confined to a location someone urges you to pursue.
I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.So if they say to you, Look, he is in the desert, do not go out; look, he is in the inner storerooms, do not lean your weight on it.For as the lightning, flashing from under heaven to under heaven, shines, so also will the Son of Man be in his day.THE THREAD
Not that I have already taken hold, or have already been made complete. But I pursue, if somehow I may seize that for which I was also seized by Jesus the Anointed One.Luke and Philippians use the same verb, διώκω (diōkō, pursue): here pursuit is refused when a report directs it, while Paul describes pursuing what has already taken hold of him. The contrast shows that the verse exposes what sets the pursuit in motion.
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