What Does Luke 2:35 Mean?
And a sword will pass through your own living soul also, so that the reasonings of many hearts may be uncovered.
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
(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.THE KEY
The verse places a sword’s piercing beside an uncovering: what lies hidden in the heart can be brought into view.
THE MEANING
The verse holds two realities together: a sword pierces the living soul, and the heart’s inner deliberations are uncovered. Pain is not softened, and what is revealed is more than a passing thought; it is what the heart has been weighing within itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that what the heart carries stays hidden: the verse says its deliberations can be uncovered.
THE ROOT
ἀποκαλυφθῶσιν
apokalyphthōsin
GROWS FROM
καλύπτω
kalyptō
To cover; with ἀπό (apo, away from), ἀποκαλύπτω means to uncover or reveal.
“uncovered” in this verse is apokalyphthōsin. The Greek word pictures a covering being taken away. The heart’s deliberations are not planted there by the revealing; what is already within is opened to view.
ALSO GROWS
kalyptō: Cover or conceal.
καλύπτω
It supplies the image behind “revealed”: what was covered can be exposed.
apokalypsis: Uncovering, revelation.
ἀποκάλυψις
This related noun names the disclosure as an uncovering of what was hidden.
kalymma: Veil or covering.
κάλυμμα
The related word for a covering makes the concealed-and-uncovered image in this verse more tangible.
ψυχή
psychē
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
The Greek word family around ψυχή: life, soul, the living self.
“living soul” in this verse is psychē. Here ψυχή names the living self reached by the piercing, not merely an abstract inner object. Its word family also speaks of natural life and likeness between persons.
ALSO GROWS
psychikos: Natural; pertaining to the soul or living life.
ψυχικός
This branch keeps the word family connected to the lived, embodied person.
isopsychos: Of like soul; like-minded.
ἰσόψυχος
This compound shows ψυχή can describe an inner life held in likeness with another.
διαλογισμοί
dialogismoi
GROWS FROM
διαλογίζομαι / λογίζομαι (dialogizomai / logizomai)
To reason through, reckon, or consider.
The word points to reasonings and inner weighing, not only isolated ideas. The verse says these deliberations of the heart can be brought into the open.
ALSO GROWS
dialogizomai: Reason, deliberate, or consider within oneself.
διαλογίζομαι
This verb shows the active process behind the heart’s deliberations.
logizomai: Reckon, count, or consider.
λογίζομαι
This related verb carries the sense of weighing something inwardly, illuminating what “thoughts” can conceal in English.
THE PATTERN
What is hidden in the heart can be searched out and brought into view.
Probe me, O God, and perceive my heart; test me, and perceive my burning thoughts.The breath of man is the lamp of the LORD, sifting all the inner chambers of the belly.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.Hebrews joins the same images: a swordlike force pierces to the soul, and the sentence names the heart’s thoughts and intents as discerned. It makes explicit the inward architecture Luke places beside the piercing and the unveiling.
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