What Does Luke 21:32 Mean?
Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass by, until all things come to be.
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
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.THE KEY
“Generation” and “be fulfilled” share the language of coming into being: this generation does not pass until everything comes to be.
THE MEANING
The generation in view does not pass before all the named things come to be. Here, “be fulfilled” carries the sense of happening, of arriving into reality. The sentence holds that sequence together without narrowing what “all” contains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the fear that the generation named can disappear before the whole of what is spoken comes to be.
THE ROOT
γένηται
genetai
GROWS FROM
γεν-
gen-
Be born, come into being, happen.
The verb translated “be fulfilled” means “come to be” or “happen.” It belongs to the same word family as “generation,” so the line joins the generation’s passing to the coming-into-being of all that is named.
ALSO GROWS
genea: Generation, lineage, or age.
γενεά
This is the word translated “generation,” tying the one that passes to what is coming into being.
genesis: Birth, origin, or coming into being.
γένεσις
This branch makes the verse’s fulfillment sound like arrival into reality, not merely completion on a list.
THE PATTERN
What is spoken has its appointed coming-to-be; passing does not outrun it.
For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and at the end it will breathe and not lie. Though it lingers, wait for it. Because it will surely come, it will not stay behind.But when the time was filled, God sent out his Son, come from a woman, come under the instruction.Heaven and earth will pass by, but my words will not pass by.THE THREAD
All things came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be that has come to be.“Be fulfilled” here is γένηται, from the word family of γίνομαι: to come to be. John uses the same verb family to describe all things coming into being, opening the verse’s “all” onto the language of creation.
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