What Does Luke 22:1 Mean?
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, the one called Passover.
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
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.THE KEY
The approaching Passover is marked by bread whose defining feature is the absence of what makes it rise.
THE MEANING
Passover comes near as a passage from constriction toward release. The feast is identified by unleavened bread, dough without the fermenting leaven that swells it. Here, nearness and subtraction belong together: release is visible in what no longer works through the whole.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that passage into freedom comes by adding more: this feast is recognized by what is absent.
THE ROOT
ἀζύμων
azymōn
GROWS FROM
ζυμ
Leaven or yeast, the ferment that makes dough rise.
“unleavened bread” in this verse is azymōn. The Greek keeps the leaven-family visible: ἀ- marks absence, while ζυμ- names the ferment that raises dough. The feast is defined by what has been removed; the same root names the process in both its presence and its absence.
ALSO GROWS
zymē: Leaven, yeast.
ζύμη
This is the leaven named by the shared ζυμ- stem, the thing absent from the bread in this verse.
zymoō: To leaven, make ferment.
ζυμόω
The verb names what leaven does: it works through dough and makes it rise.
פֶּסַח
pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To pass over or spare.
“Passover” in this verse is pesaḥ. Luke’s Greek πάσχα is a loanword from Hebrew פֶּסַח. The Hebrew root ties the feast’s name to passing over or sparing, so the name carries the shape of a crossing; in this verse, that passage is drawing near.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: To pass over, spare.
פָּסַח
The verb gives the feast-name an action: crossing over or being spared.
pesaḥ: Passover; the Passover offering.
פֶּסַח
This noun names the feast carried into Luke’s Greek as πάσχα.
THE PATTERN
Release takes shape as the old leaven is removed and the passage out of constriction comes near.
And you will guard the feast of unrisen bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you will guard this day throughout your generations as a statute for the ages.Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.A little leaven leavens the whole kneaded mass.THE THREAD
Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.The Greek words for “unleavened” here and “leaven” there share ζυμ-, the same root seen in its absent and present forms. There, Passover is named alongside the removal of old leaven, opening this approaching feast as a living pattern of release.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us