What Does Luke 21:11 Mean?
And there will be great shakings of the earth in place after place, and hunger, and plague, and frightening sights, and great signs from heaven.
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 great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.THE KEY
The verse gathers earthquakes, hunger, disease, terror, and heavenly signs into one field of upheaval that reaches both the ground beneath you and what the sky reveals.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to a reader whose sense of stability can be struck across several layers at once: the ground, food, bodies, and the sky. It names terrifying sights and signs together, holding fear and meaning in the same scene without explaining either away.
THE ROOT
σεισμοί
seismoi
GROWS FROM
σείω (σει-)
To shake or cause to tremble.
“great shakings of the earth” in this verse is seismoi. English “earthquake” sounds like a disturbance confined to the ground; the Greek σεισμός (seismós) carries the sense of shaking itself, from σείω (seíō), “to shake.” The great shaking opens the verse, then stands beside famine, plague, frightening sights, and signs from heaven.
ALSO GROWS
seismós: Earthquake; a shaking.
σεισμός
The noun names the upheaval that opens the verse.
seíō: To shake or move violently.
σείω
The verb reveals the action held inside the word for earthquake.
σημεῖα
sēmeia
GROWS FROM
σημ- (sēm-, from σῆμα)
A mark, sign, or signal.
The Greek σημεῖα (sēmeia) belongs to the word family of marks and signals. The signs from heaven are named as indications, things that point and can be read, not only as sights to behold.
ALSO GROWS
sēma: A mark or sign.
σῆμα
This is the simple sign-word at the heart of the family.
sēmainō: To signify or indicate.
σημαίνω
This branch makes explicit the pointing or indicating carried by a sign.
THE PATTERN
When the created order is shaken, scripture pairs disturbances on earth with signs in the heavens.
For thus says the LORD of hosts. Yet once more, a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry ground.And I will set wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.And I see when he opens the sixth seal, and a great shaking comes, and the sun becomes black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon becomes as blood.THE THREAD
Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in place after place.Matthew uses the same Greek word σεισμοί (seismoi, “earthquakes”) alongside famines and pestilences. The shared word links the two passages at the level of the original wording, with Luke placing the shaking first and then widening the scene to signs from heaven.
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