What Does Luke 21:3 Mean?
And he said, In truth, I say to you, this emptied widow cast in more than all of them.
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 said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:THE KEY
In Jesus’ measure, “more” names the share of life given, not the number of coins.
THE MEANING
This verse makes visible size an incomplete measure: what appears smallest can carry the greatest share of a life. The widow’s gift surpasses the others because its meaning is not captured by counting coins alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that the largest visible contribution is necessarily the greatest gift.
THE ROOT
πτωχή
ptōchē
GROWS FROM
πτωχ-
ptōch-
Crouch or cower; by extension, beg or be destitute.
“emptied” in this verse is ptōchē. This word’s family holds the image of crouching to beg alongside the state of poverty: it describes material lack, not a measure of worth. The verse names her lack plainly, then overturns the assumption that lack makes her offering small.
ALSO GROWS
ptōcheia: Poverty
πτωχεία
In 2 Corinthians 8:2, deep poverty appears alongside abundant generosity, echoing this verse’s reversal of visible measure.
ptōcheuō: To become poor, to live in poverty
πτωχεύω
In 2 Corinthians 8:9, the same word family describes becoming poor, keeping poverty in view as a lived condition rather than a label for small worth.
THE PATTERN
The true measure sees the inward reality that visible comparison misses.
But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have pushed him away. The LORD does not see as the human sees. The human sees what is outside, but the LORD sees the heart.For they all threw in out of their overflow, but she, out of her lack, threw in all that she had, even all her living.For if the leaning heart is there first, it is well received according to what one has, and not according to what one does not have.THE THREAD
For all these cast in from their overflow into the gifts of God, but she, from her lack, cast in all her living that she had.The next verse reveals what “more” measures: the others give from abundance, while she gives all she has to live on. It turns the comparison from the coins entering the treasury to the share of life each gift carries.
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