What Does Luke 18:9 Mean?
And he spoke this parable to some who leaned their weight on themselves, that they were aligned, and made nothing of others.
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 he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:THE KEY
The verse binds confidence in one’s own rightness to contempt for others as two expressions of the same posture.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to the reader who relies on their own judgment of being right while looking down on others. It joins self-trust and contempt: one’s own standing becomes the measure by which other people are diminished. The parable meets that posture in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Confidence in one’s own rightness is not proof of alignment; here, that confidence travels with contempt for others.
THE ROOT
πεποιθότας
pepoithotas
GROWS FROM
πείθω
peithō
To persuade or convince; in the middle or passive, to be persuaded and trust.
“leaned their weight on themselves” in this verse is pepoithotas. This form presents their confidence as a settled persuasion: they have come to rely on themselves. The verse places that inward certainty beside their contempt for others, without treating certainty as proof of alignment.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: To persuade or convince; to be persuaded.
πείθω
The word family makes self-confidence legible as persuasion that has taken hold.
pepoitha: To be confident or rely on.
πέποιθα
This related form shows the trust or reliance carried by the confidence in the verse.
ἐξουθενοῦντας
exouthenountas
GROWS FROM
οὐδέν
ouden
Nothing; the related verb family carries the sense of treating someone or something as nothing.
“made nothing of” in this verse is exouthenountas. The verb gives contempt the force of reckoning other people as nothing. The verse’s two movements are joined: reliance on one’s own standing accompanies reducing the standing of others.
ALSO GROWS
ouden: Nothing.
οὐδέν
This is the “nothing” at the center of the related verb family.
exoudenoō: To regard as nothing or despise.
ἐξουδενόω
This related form makes explicit how contempt can treat another person as negligible.
δίκαιοι
dikaioi
GROWS FROM
δίκη
dikē
Right, justice, or what is due; the word family concerns being right or setting something right.
“aligned” in this verse is dikaioi. The word names rightness or justice, which can be heard alongside alignment. The verse’s tension is that these people rest their claim to rightness on their own judgment while dismissing others.
ALSO GROWS
dikaiosynē: Justice, righteousness, or alignment.
δικαιοσύνη
This related noun connects the claim to being right with the broader idea of alignment.
dikaioō: To justify or set right.
δικαιόω
This related verb shows the family’s concern with a standing being judged or set right.
THE PATTERN
Self-assessed rightness can conceal what a person’s treatment of others reveals.
There is a generation clean in their own eyes, and is not washed from their dung.For I say, through the favor given to me, to every one among you, not to think of himself above what he ought to think, but to think soundly, as God has divided to each a measure of trust.My brothers, do not hold the trust of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Lord of weight, by receiving faces.THE THREAD
But why do you judge your brother? And why do you make nothing of your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of the Anointed One.Romans uses ἐξουθενεῖς (exoutheneis, “you set at nought”), from the same word family as ἐξουθενοῦντας (exouthenountas, “despising” or “treating as nothing”) here. The shared root exposes contempt as making another person count for nothing, while the verse places both before the same judgment seat.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us