What Does Luke 22:4 Mean?
And he went away and spoke together with the chief priests and the captains, how he might hand him over to 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 went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them.THE KEY
The Greek word translated “betray” also means to hand someone over, making the coming transfer visible inside the act of disloyalty.
THE MEANING
Betrayal here takes shape in a deliberate conversation about how to place another person into someone else’s hands. The verse shows harm being arranged through ordinary speech and coordination before the handover itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that betrayal exists only in the dramatic moment of abandonment dissolves here: the verse locates it earlier, in a calculated plan to hand someone over.
THE ROOT
παραδῷ
paradō
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give; in this compound, to hand someone over or deliver them.
The Greek verb translated “betray” is built around δίδωμι (didōmi), “to give.” English foregrounds the treachery, while the Greek also keeps the concrete transfer in view: one person is arranged to pass from one set of hands to another.
ALSO GROWS
paradidōmi: Hand over, deliver, or betray.
παραδίδωμι
This is the verb used in the verse; it holds the relational betrayal and the physical handover together.
apodidōmi: Give back, render, or pay.
ἀποδίδωμι
The same root can describe a transfer as payment or return, echoing how a handover may be bound up with an exchange.
metadidōmi: Share or impart.
μεταδίδωμι
The same root also describes giving something to be shared, showing how the meaning of giving depends on what is transferred and to whom.
THE PATTERN
Giving someone over is a concrete transfer whose moral meaning is exposed by who arranges it, who receives them, and what follows.
And said to them, What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you? And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver.Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.Who was handed over for our stumbles, and raised for our alignment.THE THREAD
And said to them, What will you give me, and I will hand him over to you? And they set out for him thirty pieces of silver.Here the handover arranged in Luke is spoken as a bargain: “What will ye give me?” The same Greek verb makes the transaction visible inside the word translated “betray.”
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