What Does Luke 23:32 Mean?
And two others, workers of evil, were also led with him to be taken away.
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 there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.THE KEY
The condemned share one road toward death without becoming the same.
THE MEANING
You can be bound to others by a common ordeal while your stories remain distinct. Here, two wrongdoers are led with Jesus toward death; the shared procession holds them together without erasing how the verse names them.
THE ROOT
ἤγοντο
ēgonto
GROWS FROM
ἄγω (agō; ἄγ-)
To lead or bring someone toward a place.
“led” in this verse is ēgonto. The verb describes the men as being brought along, not choosing their own way to the destination. With the phrase “with him,” its sense of leading makes the condemned a company moving toward the same end.
ALSO GROWS
apágō: Lead or take away.
ἀπάγω
It echoes the movement toward execution: the men are led away to their fate.
eiságō: Lead or bring in.
εἰσάγω
It shares the sense of bringing someone to a destination, underscoring that the verse describes a directed movement.
synágō: Gather or bring together.
συνάγω
Its “together” sense echoes the company gathered in this shared procession.
κακοῦργοι
kakoúrgoi
GROWS FROM
κακοῦργος (kakoúrgos), from κακός + ἔργον
A wrongdoer: one associated with bad work or deeds.
“workers of evil” in this verse is kakoúrgoi. The word joins “bad” to “work” or “deed,” naming these men by their wrongdoing. Their company with Jesus does not make their identities interchangeable; the sentence holds both the shared road and the distinct name in view.
ALSO GROWS
kakós: Bad or wrong.
κακός
It supplies the judgment within the word for “malefactors.”
érgon: Work or deed.
ἔργον
It ties the label to what is done, rather than to a vague quality.
ἀναιρεθῆναι
anairethēnai
GROWS FROM
ἀναιρέω (anaireō), from ἀνά + αἱρέω
To take away or remove; in this verse, to kill.
The Greek verb frames their fate as being taken away, while leaving the violence of execution plain. Beside ἄγω, the sentence names both the movement that brings them there and the removal that awaits them.
ALSO GROWS
hairéō: Take or choose.
αἱρέω
It is the taking sense within the verb used for their death.
exairéō: Take out or rescue.
ἐξαιρέω
It shares the root of taking something out, sharpening the force of “put to death” as removal.
THE PATTERN
The one approaching death is counted in the company of wrongdoers.
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his living soul to death, and was counted with the rebels. He carried the falling short of many, and for the rebels he stepped in.For I say to you, what is written must yet reach its end in me, and he was reckoned among the unbounded. For the things concerning me come to their end.They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right hand and the other on his left.THE THREAD
Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the plunder with the strong, because he poured out his living soul to death, and was counted with the rebels. He carried the falling short of many, and for the rebels he stepped in.Isaiah’s phrase “numbered with the transgressors” gives the shared procession its deeper shape: the condemned one is counted among the condemned. Luke stages that association through the two men led with him, while still naming them as wrongdoers.
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