What Does Luke 23:20 Mean?
So Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, spoke to them again.
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
Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them.THE KEY
Luke places Pilate’s wish to release Jesus beside speech repeated to the people, showing that willingness and release are not the same act.
THE MEANING
Pilate wants Jesus released, but the verse shows him speaking again while Jesus remains held. It speaks now wherever someone with power names release as a desire while the person held still awaits a decision. Repeated speech has not yet become release.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Wanting to let someone go does not, by itself, make them free.
THE ROOT
ἀπολῦσαι
apolysai
GROWS FROM
λύω
luō
To loosen or untie; by extension, to release.
The infinitive ἀπολῦσαι (apolysai, “to release”) comes from ἀπολύω (apolyō, “to release or dismiss”), joining ἀπό (apo, “away”) with λύω (luō, “to loosen”). The image is of loosening someone away; here, Pilate’s wish is still speech, not completed release.
ALSO GROWS
luō: To loosen, untie, or release.
λύω
The base verb reveals the image beneath “release”: loosening what is held, as in John 11:44’s command to “Loose him.”
apolysis: Release or dismissal.
ἀπόλυσις
This related noun names the act Pilate wants to carry out: letting someone go.
THE PATTERN
Freedom takes shape when what is held is actually loosened, not merely wished free.
Who makes judgment for the pressed, who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD loosens the bound.The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.John uses λύω (luō, “to loosen”) in the command “Loose him.” Release becomes a bodily unbinding there, giving physical shape to the loosening carried by Luke’s ἀπολύω (apolyō, “to release”).
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