What Does Luke 23:33 Mean?
And when they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, and the workers of evil, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
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 when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.THE KEY
Calvary is the place of the Skull, where Jesus is crucified between two condemned men.
THE MEANING
The verse brings you to the place called Skull: Jesus is crucified there, with a condemned man at his right and another at his left. The scene holds the execution at its center, with wrongdoing and death on either side.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The scene undoes the idea that the condemned remain outside the center: Jesus is crucified between them.
THE ROOT
κρανίον
kranion
GROWS FROM
κραν-
kran-
Skull; the Greek text names the place “Skull.” “Calvary” comes through the Latin calvaria, meaning skull.
“the Skull” in this verse is kranion. The place-name is an image: this is literally the place of a skull. The name holds the human body and death inside the scene rather than hiding them behind a distant location.
ALSO GROWS
kranion: Skull
κρανίον
This is the Greek word used for the place-name in the verse.
kranio: Skull in modern Greek
κρανίο
It preserves the same Greek word family and its concrete image.
cranium: The skull
This English word comes from Greek kranion, carrying the same bodily meaning.
ἐσταύρωσαν
estaurōsan stauroō
GROWS FROM
σταυρ-
staur-
Cross or stake; the verb names the act of fastening someone to this instrument of execution.
The Greek verb for “crucified” shares its stem with the word for the cross itself. The action and the instrument belong to one word-family: the execution is bound to the cross that carries it out.
ALSO GROWS
stauros: Cross or stake
σταυρός
The noun names the instrument carried within the verb’s stem.
staurōsis: Crucifixion
σταύρωσις
This noun names the execution formed from the same stem.
anastauroō: Crucify again
ἀνασταυρόω
This compound verb retains the same cross-and-execution root.
κακούργους
kakourgous kakourgos
GROWS FROM
κακός + ἔργον (kakos + ergon)
Bad or evil + work or deed: an evildoer, one identified by wrongdoing.
“workers of evil” in this verse is kakourgous kakourgos. The Greek word is built from “bad” and “deed,” making the men beside Jesus wrongdoers by name. That wording places two condemned men on either side of him without softening what they are called.
ALSO GROWS
kakos: Bad or evil
κακός
This is the first element of the compound describing the men.
ergon: Work or deed
ἔργον
This is the second element: the compound names them by their deeds.
THE PATTERN
The one at the center of the scene is counted among those marked as 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
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.Luke 22:37 gives the words for what Luke 23:33 shows: he is reckoned among transgressors. Here that placement takes shape with a condemned man on either side.
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