What Does Luke 2:31 Mean?
Which you have made ready before the face of all the peoples.
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
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;THE KEY
The deliverance is prepared in full view of all people, so its readiness and its reach belong together.
THE MEANING
The deliverance is ready and set in the open before every people. The verse names a horizon broad enough to include the one reading now. What is prepared is not hidden from the world.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s deliverance is reserved for one people or concealed from view; the verse places it before all people.
THE ROOT
ἡτοίμασας
hetoimasas
GROWS FROM
ἑτοιμάζω
hetoimazō
To make ready; to bring into a state of readiness.
The verb carries readiness inside the act of preparation: what is prepared is already made ready. Joined to the phrase “before the face of all people,” that readiness stands in the open rather than remaining concealed.
ALSO GROWS
hetoimos: Ready, prepared.
ἕτοιμος
This related word makes the state contained in the verb visible: preparation brings something into readiness.
hetoimasia: Readiness, preparation.
ἑτοιμασία
This noun carries the same readiness into a state or condition, deepening the sense that what is placed before all people is already made ready.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance is made ready and brought into view across the boundaries of peoples.
The LORD has bared his set-apart arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the edges of the earth shall see the deliverance of our God.The LORD makes his deliverance known. He uncovers his alignment before the eyes of the nations.For the favor of God that brings deliverance has shone upon all humankind.THE THREAD
And he will go before him in the breath and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers toward the children, and the unpersuaded toward the mind of the aligned, to make ready a people fitted for the LORD.Luke 1:17 uses the same ἑτοιμάζω root when it says John will “make ready” a people for the Lord. Here, that readiness stands before all peoples, extending the word’s reach beyond a private circle.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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