What Does Luke 19:47 Mean?
And he was teaching every day in the temple. But the chief priests, and the writers, and the first among the people sought to make him perish.
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 taught daily in the temple. But the chief priests and the scribes and the chief of the people sought to destroy him,THE KEY
The Greek word behind “destroy” belongs to the same word-family used for being “lost”: the leaders seek to make the teacher perish.
THE MEANING
You can see open, daily teaching and a deliberate plan to destroy its speaker occupying the same sacred space. The verse shows that religious authority does not by itself protect the life or truth being spoken.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sacred titles guarantee that their bearers protect what is true or life-giving.
THE ROOT
ἀπολέσαι
apolesai
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι
Apollymi (ἀπόλλυμι, apollymi) means to destroy or cause to perish; in other forms it also means to lose or be lost.
Here, “destroy” is the leaders’ intended outcome: to make him perish. The same Greek word-family can describe someone who is lost, letting the verse’s violence echo the language of loss.
ALSO GROWS
apollymi: To perish, be destroyed, or be lost.
ἀπόλλυμι
This is the word-family behind “sought to destroy”; elsewhere it describes someone who is lost.
apōleia: Loss, ruin, or destruction.
ἀπώλεια
This related noun carries the same movement toward loss that the leaders intend for the teacher.
THE PATTERN
Open teaching can be met not only with dispute but with an organized attempt to remove its speaker.
And it was, when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all the people, that the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, "You shall surely die."Then from that day forward they took counsel together to put him to death.For in truth, in this city, against your set-apart servant Jesus, whom you anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate were gathered together with the nations and the peoples of Israel,THE THREAD
For this son of mine was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found." And they began to be glad.Luke uses the same Greek word-family for the son who is “lost,” while this verse uses it for what the leaders seek to do to Jesus. The echo draws “destroy” and “lost” back toward one root: a life brought to ruin or lost.
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