What Does Luke 22:15 Mean?
And he said to them, I have longed with longing to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
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 unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:THE KEY
Jesus longs to share this meal as suffering draws near, the Greek repeats “desire” as noun and verb.
THE MEANING
You meet desire and suffering together: the longing is full, and suffering is named as near. The shared table does not cancel pain; it stands with it at the threshold. Longing remains real even when suffering is ahead.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that suffering proves desire has gone cold: here, longing remains as suffering nears.
THE ROOT
ἐπιθυμίᾳ
epithymia
GROWS FROM
θυμ-
The Greek stem thym- carries the sense of inward impulse or passion.
“I have longed with longing” in this verse is epithymia. The Greek pairs the noun “desire” with the verb “I desired,” both built on θυμ- (thym-, inward impulse or passion). That repetition makes the longing emphatic: the meal is something Jesus wants to share, even with suffering close ahead.
ALSO GROWS
epithymeō: to desire, long for
ἐπιθυμέω
The verb from this word-family is repeated in the verse, turning desire into an active longing.
thymos: passion, inward drive; also anger in some contexts
θυμός
This branch shows the force carried by desire: it is an inward movement, not a casual preference.
παθεῖν
pathein
GROWS FROM
παθ-
The Greek stem path- means to undergo or experience, especially hardship.
The word translated “suffer” belongs to a family centered on what is undergone or experienced. The verse places that coming experience beside a deeply desired meal, holding longing and hardship in one frame.
ALSO GROWS
pathos: an experience, passion, or suffering
πάθος
It keeps the sense of something felt and undergone beside the verse’s approaching suffering.
pathēma: an experience or suffering
πάθημα
This branch names what is undergone, echoing the hardship Jesus says lies ahead.
THE PATTERN
The Passover meal marks a threshold where deliverance is near and what comes next is already in view.
And in this way you will eat it, with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand; you will eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.But I have an immersion to be immersed in, and how I am pressed until it is finished!Before the feast of Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come to cross over out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end.THE THREAD
Truly, I say to you, that many prophets and aligned men have longed to perceive what you look upon, and have not perceived it; and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.“Have desired” comes from the same Greek word-family as the doubled desire in Luke 22:15. In Matthew the longing reaches toward seeing and hearing; here it reaches toward sharing the Passover meal.
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