What Does Luke 20:13 Mean?
Then the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps they will turn toward him when they perceive him.
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
Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.THE KEY
The owner’s appeal arrives embodied in his beloved son, so the tenants’ response to the son reveals whether they recognize the one who sent him.
THE MEANING
The owner still entrusts the vineyard, and his beloved son arrives carrying the owner’s claim. The question “What shall I do?” holds open the hope that seeing the son will turn the tenants toward respect. The verse makes receiving the son inseparable from receiving the one who sent him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that what is entrusted to you can be claimed as your own while the owner’s son is refused.
THE ROOT
ἐντραπήσονται
entrapēsontai
GROWS FROM
τρέπω (trepō), with ἐν- in ἐντρέπω (entrepō)
Turn; in this word family, turning toward someone can carry the response of shame or respect.
“turn toward” in this verse is entrapēsontai. The Greek verb can mean to feel respect or to be ashamed before someone. The owner hopes that seeing his son will make the tenants recognize the claim standing before them.
ALSO GROWS
entrepō: Turn toward; feel shame or respect
ἐντρέπω
This related verb shows how the son’s presence can prompt regard, or expose refusal.
tropē: Turning, change
τροπή
The shared stem brings a sense of turning into the owner’s hope that seeing the son changes the tenants’ response.
ἀγαπητόν
agapēton
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
agap-
Love, hold dear.
“Beloved” belongs to the same Greek family as the verb “to love” and the noun “love.” The one sent is not merely an emissary: he is dear to the owner, so rejecting him also rejects the relationship he carries.
ALSO GROWS
agapaō: Love, hold dear
ἀγαπάω
The verb makes the bond behind “beloved” visible.
agapē: Love
ἀγάπη
The related noun shows that the son arrives carrying a relationship, not only a message.
THE PATTERN
The way a sent representative is received reveals whether the sender is received.
And the LORD said to Samuel, Hear and respond to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not spurned you, but they have spurned me, that I should not reign over them.Whoever takes you in takes me in, and whoever takes me in takes in the one who sent me.Truly, truly, I say to you, the one who takes hold of whoever I send takes hold of me; and the one who takes me takes hold of the one who sent me.THE THREAD
And the Set-Apart Breath came down in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came out of heaven, saying, You are my beloved Son; in you I am well pleased.Luke uses the same Greek words for “my beloved Son” when the voice names him. Here, those words enter the owner’s deliberation as he sends the son, grounding the appeal in the relationship already named.
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