What Does Luke 20:17 Mean?
And he looked directly at them, and said, Then what is this that is written, The stone that the builders tested and set aside, this same one has become the head of the corner?
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 beheld them, and said, What is this then that is written, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner?THE KEY
The rejected stone becomes the corner’s head: human dismissal becomes the very point that sets the whole structure.
THE MEANING
The verse holds rejection and becoming together: what is cast aside can become the point that orders the whole structure. It speaks now into the apparent finality of exclusion: another’s verdict does not settle the place you ultimately occupy.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being rejected proves you are unfit and have no place.
THE ROOT
ἀπεδοκίμασαν
apedokimasan
GROWS FROM
δοκιμ-
The Greek stem δοκιμ- (dokim-, testing and approval) carries the sense of examining or proving.
“tested and set aside” in this verse is apedokimasan. In ἀπεδοκίμασαν (apedokimasan, they rejected), the stem δοκιμ- (dokim-, testing and approval) sits inside a verdict against the stone: the builders assess it and cast it away. The prefix ἀπο- (apo-, away) turns that assessment toward rejection, yet the rejected stone becomes the corner’s head.
ALSO GROWS
dokimazō: To test, examine, or approve after testing.
δοκιμάζω
The shared δοκιμ- stem shows that the builders’ rejection is a judgment about the stone, not a neutral act of overlooking it.
dokimos: Tested and approved; genuine.
δόκιμος
This related word carries the stem’s other possible outcome: what is examined may prove sound, even when the builders’ verdict is rejection.
THE PATTERN
What builders reject can become the stone that fixes the structure’s alignment.
The stone the builders push away becomes the head of the corner.Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a weighty cornerstone, a foundation set firm. The one who leans his weight will not hurry.So honor is yours, you who lean your full weight upon him; but for those who will not yield, the stone the builders tested and set aside has become the head of the corner,THE THREAD
So honor is yours, you who lean your full weight upon him; but for those who will not yield, the stone the builders tested and set aside has become the head of the corner,Peter repeats Luke’s Greek verb ἀπεδοκίμασαν (apedokimasan, they rejected) in the stone saying. The shared root connects the builders’ verdict with the surprising outcome: the stone they reject becomes the corner’s head.
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