What Does Luke 20:6 Mean?
But if we say from humankind, all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet.
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
But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.THE KEY
The leaders’ fear of the crowd exposes whose authority is governing their answer.
THE MEANING
Fear of the crowd governs the answer before it is spoken. The people are so convinced John was a prophet that the leaders anticipate being stoned for saying otherwise. In that calculation, public force, not the truth at stake, sets the limits of what they can say.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A guarded answer is not necessarily a neutral one: when it is chosen to avoid retaliation, fear is already shaping what can be said.
THE ROOT
πεπεισμένος
pepeisménos
GROWS FROM
πείθω (peithō), πειθ-
To persuade or convince; in passive forms, to be persuaded or convinced.
“persuaded” in this verse is pepeisménos. The people are not merely hearing that John was a prophet; they are settled in that conviction. The leaders anticipate that conviction becoming physical force, so public danger shapes their answer.
ALSO GROWS
peithō: Persuade or convince
πείθω
This active sense shows the movement into conviction that the verse describes in its passive form.
pépoitha: Trust or be confident
πέποιθα
This related form shows how conviction can become something a person leans on, as the crowd’s settled belief becomes a force the leaders fear.
καταλιθάσει
katalithásei
GROWS FROM
λίθος (líthos), λιθ-
Stone; the concrete noun gives the verb its physical force.
The Greek verb names stoning, not an abstract rejection. The same stone-word can also become a witness that speaks when people are silenced, linking the threat here with the image in Luke 19:40.
ALSO GROWS
líthos: Stone
λίθος
This is the concrete noun beneath the verb and keeps the threat literal.
litházō: Stone someone
λιθάζω
This verb names the violent action the leaders expect the crowd to take.
THE PATTERN
When public retaliation governs speech, a person’s answer can follow self-protection instead of the question of truth.
Saul said to Samuel, I have missed the mark, for I have crossed over the mouth of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and heard and responded to their voice.The trembling of man sets a snare, but the one who leans his full weight on the LORD is set on high.For they loved the weight from humankind more than the weight of God.THE THREAD
And he answered and said, "I tell you, if these should hold their tongues, the stones will cry out."The same stone-word appears just before this scene: Jesus says that if the disciples are silenced, the stones will cry out; here the leaders fear the crowd’s stones. In one scene stone becomes an unstoppable witness, and in the next it is the violence the leaders anticipate.
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