What Does Luke 23:23 Mean?
But they pressed upon him with loud voices, asking that he be crucified. And their voices, and the voices of the chief priests, gained the upper hand.
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 were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed.THE KEY
The voices do not merely make a demand: their growing strength carries it through to crucifixion.
THE MEANING
Loud insistence can gather force until it decides another person’s fate. Here, the crowd’s voices and the chief priests’ voices prevail, and Jesus is condemned to crucifixion; their success does not make the demand just.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A demand does not become just because the many press it loudly enough to win.
THE ROOT
κατίσχυον
katískhyuon
GROWS FROM
ἰσχυ- (ischy-), from ἰσχύω (ischyō)
Be strong; have power; prevail.
“gained the upper hand” in this verse is katískhyuon. The verb translated “prevailed” is built on ἰσχύω (ischyō), meaning “to be strong” or “to have power.” The voices do more than remain loud: the verse says their pressure gathers strength and overcomes. The word names their power in action without making its outcome just.
ALSO GROWS
ischýs: Strength; power.
ἰσχύς
The related noun makes the force behind “prevailed” visible as strength wielded by the voices.
ischyrós: Strong; mighty.
ἰσχυρός
This related adjective describes the capacity for strength that, in this verse, becomes an overpowering outcome.
THE PATTERN
A chorus can turn speech into force, carrying a demand through to bodily harm.
You shall not go after the crowd to do harm. Nor shall you answer in a dispute, turning aside after the crowd, to bend judgment.Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.Then they cried out with a loud voice, and held shut their ears, and rushed upon him with one passion.THE THREAD
Speak your stumbles into the open to one another, and pray over one another, that you may be made whole. The asking of an aligned one, working within, is very strong.Luke’s “prevailed” (κατίσχυον, katískhyuon) belongs to the same Greek word family as James’s “availeth” (ἰσχύει, ischýei, “has power”). The shared root names power in both verses; Luke shows voices wielding it toward crucifixion, while James describes prayer as powerful.
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