What Does Luke 20:34 Mean?
And Jesus answered and said to them, The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage.
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 Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage:THE KEY
The word translated “world” is “age,” placing marriage within a time-bound order rather than making it the shape of life itself.
THE MEANING
This age carries its own way of forming households: people marry and are given in marriage. Jesus places marriage within this age’s order, leaving room for a different form of life in the resurrection age.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse loosens the belief that marriage defines human life in every age; it belongs to the order of this age.
THE ROOT
αἰῶνος
aiōnos
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
age, era, or span of existence
The Greek word names an age, while “this” locates the verse within one particular horizon. Marriage belongs to this age’s way of life; the word leaves open that life may take another form in the age to come.
ALSO GROWS
aiōnes: ages
αἰῶνες
The plural makes clear that scripture can speak of more than one age, so “this age” is not the only horizon.
aiōnios: belonging to an age; age-long
αἰώνιος
This related form carries the same age-language into descriptions of what pertains to an age.
γαμοῦσιν καὶ γαμίσκονται
gamousin kai gamiskontai
GROWS FROM
γαμ-
gam-
marriage; to marry
“marry / are given in marriage” in this verse is gamousin kai gamiskontai. The two forms share the marriage word-family: one names marrying, the other being given in marriage. Together they show marriage as a shared arrangement of this age, experienced from both sides.
ALSO GROWS
gamos: marriage, wedding
γάμος
The noun names the marriage bond and celebration underlying both actions in the verse.
gameō: marry / give in marriage
γαμέω / γαμίζω
These related verbs illuminate the active and passive sides named together here.
THE PATTERN
The arrangements of this age do not determine the form of life in the resurrection or new creation.
For behold, I have created new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they rise upon the heart.For in the rising they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the messengers of God in heaven.And those who use this world as those who do not use it up, for the shape of this world is passing by.THE THREAD
But those who are weighed worthy to reach that age, and the rising from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage.The phrase “that world” translates the same Greek root, αἰών (aiōn), meaning “age.” The next verse makes the contrast explicit: marriage belongs to this age, while resurrection life has a different form.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us