What Does Luke 20:31 Mean?
And the third took her, and so did all seven. They left no children, and they died.
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 the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died.THE KEY
Here, “left” names what remains after departure: the seven die with no children left behind to continue their line.
THE MEANING
This verse holds up the limit of biological continuation: the seven leave no children behind, and each dies. A life without descendants still stands inside the passage’s question about what lives before God; lineage does not answer it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that descendants are the only way a life remains: the seven leave no children, yet the passage goes on to say that all live to God.
THE ROOT
κατέλιπον
katelipon
GROWS FROM
λείπω
leipō
To leave or leave behind; also to be left lacking.
The verb is καταλείπω, “leave behind,” built from λείπω, which can also mean to be lacking. The verse describes each death alongside the absence of anyone left behind to continue the family line, making that absence part of its repeated pattern.
ALSO GROWS
kataleipō: To leave behind.
καταλείπω
This is the verb used in the verse: the children are what the seven do not leave after them.
leimma: A remnant; what remains.
λεῖμμα
This related word carries the sense of what is left over, illuminating the verse’s focus on whether anything remains after each death.
enkataleipō: To abandon or forsake.
ἐγκαταλείπω
This compound shares the same root of leaving, showing how the language can describe what is left behind or left without.
THE PATTERN
Biological descent does not set the boundary of belonging or life before God.
Even to them will I set in my house, and within my walls, a hand and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them a name of the ages that shall not be cut off.For he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.THE THREAD
And he left everything behind, rose up, and followed him.Luke uses the same Greek verb, καταλείπω, for what is left behind: here, no children; there, all Levi’s possessions. The shared root makes “left” concrete as what remains after someone departs.
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