What Does Luke 2:17 Mean?
And when they had seen it, they spread abroad the word that had been spoken to them about this child.
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 they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child.THE KEY
The same knowing that reaches the shepherds moves outward through them: what they receive becomes known as they speak.
THE MEANING
What reaches you about this child is not only something to observe: the spoken saying becomes known through the people who receive it. The verse holds revelation as movement from encounter into testimony, with the message passing outward through human voices.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the assumption that revelation is complete while sealed inside a private experience; here, what is received becomes known as it is spoken.
THE ROOT
ἐγνώρισαν
egnōrisan
GROWS FROM
γνω-/γνο- (gnō-/gno-)
To know or recognize; γνωρίζω (gnōrizō) means to make known, to disclose.
“spread abroad” in this verse is egnōrisan. This Greek verb belongs to the word-family of knowing and recognition, and its form means to cause something to be known. Those who encounter the saying become the means by which it is disclosed, carrying the knowing outward through their voices.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: Know, recognize, perceive through encounter.
γινώσκω
The shepherds’ disclosure grows from what they have seen and received, not from detached information.
gnōsis: Knowing, recognition, knowledge.
γνῶσις
This branch keeps the announcement connected to knowing: the message becomes known as those who have received it make it known.
THE PATTERN
What is received through seeing and hearing becomes shared testimony when it is spoken.
Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.That which we have perceived and heard, we declare to you, so that you also may share in common with us. And truly our sharing in common is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus, the Anointed One.THE THREAD
And it came to pass, as the messengers went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let us now pass through to Bethlehem, and see this word that has come to pass, which the Lord has shown us.The Lord “hath made known” the message to the shepherds with the same Greek verb-family used when they “made known” the saying in verse 17. The disclosure passes through them: what is made known to them becomes known through them.
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