What Does Luke 18:7 Mean?
And will God not set his own chosen straight, the ones who cry out to him day and night, though he is slow to heat with 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 shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?THE KEY
Divine patience stretches time without turning a heard cry into a forgotten one.
THE MEANING
Your cries day and night remain before God as the answer takes time. The question holds God’s patience beside the promise that God brings justice for those who cry to him. The Greek wording can suggest either God bearing patiently or delaying over them, so the wait remains present in the verse rather than being erased.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a long wait proves God has not heard you. This verse holds delay and divine attention together, and points toward justice.
THE ROOT
μακροθυμεῖ
makrothymei
GROWS FROM
μακροθυμέω (makrothymeō), from μακρός (makros, long) + θυμός (thymos, anger or heat)
To be long-tempered: to take a long time before anger or heat rises.
“slow to heat with them” in this verse is makrothymei. The word carries the sense of being slow to heat, so the wait is described through restraint over time. That does not make the delay unreal; it shows how patience and a continuing cry occupy the same verse.
ALSO GROWS
makrothymia: patience, long-temperedness
μακροθυμία
This related word names the quality that stretches through the waiting in the verse.
thymos: anger, heat
θυμός
This is the heat held back in being long-tempered; patience is not indifference but a restraint that does not flare quickly.
ἐκδικήσει
ekdikēsei
GROWS FROM
δίκη (dikē, justice or what is right), with ἐκ- (ek-, out or from)
The word family concerns carrying out justice or vindicating a claim.
“set his own chosen straight” in this verse is ekdikēsei. Here, “avenge” can be heard as giving the wronged person justice; the word can include retribution, while keeping the claim of what is right in view. Beside the repeated cry, it makes the promised answer specific: the wrong is brought before justice.
ALSO GROWS
dikē: justice, what is right
δίκη
This is the justice at the heart of the word for avenging.
ekdikēsis: vindication, the carrying out of justice
ἐκδίκησις
This related noun names the justice sought by the widow whose story frames the verse.
THE PATTERN
The cry of the wronged reaches God, who hears and answers with justice.
If you press them down in any way, and they cry out at all to me, I will surely hear and respond to their cry.The aligned cry out, and the LORD hears, and snatches them out of all their narrow places.And they cry out with a great voice, saying, How long, Set-Apart and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood against those who settle upon the earth?THE THREAD
Be slow to heat therefore, brethren, until the arrival of the LORD. Look, the one who works the soil waits for the costly fruit of the earth, and is slow to heat over it until he takes in the early and late rain.James uses the same long-tempered word and places it beside a farmer’s extended wait for fruit. It opens Luke’s tension: the delay is real, while patience and the promise of an answer remain in view.
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