What Does Luke 22:71 Mean?
And they said, What need we any further witness? For we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.
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 they said, What need we any further witness? for we ourselves have heard of his own mouth.THE KEY
The accused’s own words become the accusers’ evidence the moment they say they have heard them firsthand.
THE MEANING
You encounter the force of direct testimony: the words reach the hearers from the speaker’s own mouth, without an intermediary. Here, they turn that hearing into grounds for judgment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that hearing someone firsthand guarantees a fair hearing of them: a person can be heard clearly and still have their words used to condemn them.
THE ROOT
μαρτυρίας
martyrías
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
To testify or bear witness; a μάρτυς (martys) is a witness who gives testimony.
The word for testimony belongs to the same family as the word for a witness and the verb “to testify.” The claim that no further witness is needed therefore makes the accused’s speech itself the evidence they carry into judgment.
ALSO GROWS
martys: witness, one who testifies
μάρτυς
The person who bears witness shares the word-family of the testimony they provide.
martyreō: testify, bear witness
μαρτυρέω
The verb names the act that produces the testimony they say they already have.
ἠκούσαμεν
ēkousamen
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
To hear or listen; ἠκούσαμεν is the form “we heard.”
The verb means that they heard; its family also forms a word for hearing or report and a verb for heeding or obeying. The verse exposes the gap between receiving words and responding to them: these hearers register the speech as evidence for a verdict.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: hearing, report
ἀκοή
The family can name both the act of hearing and what is received as a report.
hypakouō: heed, obey
ὑπακούω
This related verb extends hearing toward a response, a possibility distinct from the hearers’ use of the words as evidence.
THE PATTERN
Words become testimony when listeners carry what they hear into judgment, and testimony still must be weighed.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.If I bear witness about myself, my witness is not true.For you will be his witness to all humankind, of what you have seen and heard.THE THREAD
If I bear witness about myself, my witness is not true.Luke’s speakers treat his own words as sufficient testimony; John 5:31 uses the same testimony word-family while questioning the force of self-witness. The shared root makes the tension visible: hearing the accused speak does not by itself settle what the testimony means or whether the judgment is sound.
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