What Does Luke 24:1 Mean?
And on the first day of the week, in the deep of the dawn, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared, and certain others with them.
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
Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them.THE KEY
The Greek word for “sepulchre” belongs to the family of remembering: they arrive at a place that holds the dead in memory, carrying what they prepared for death.
THE MEANING
You arrive carrying preparations for an ending, at a place whose name belongs to remembrance. The scene holds grief and care as real, while the tomb is not yet shown to contain the whole meaning of what has happened.
THE ROOT
μνῆμα
mnēma
GROWS FROM
μνη
Memory, remembrance; the μνη- (mnē-) family evokes what is kept in mind.
The word translated “sepulchre” is μνῆμα (mnēma, tomb or memorial), from the same word family as memory and remembering. English can make the place sound only like a container for the dead; the Greek also carries the sense of a place that keeps someone in mind.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This word names what a memorial holds: someone kept in mind.
mnēmoneuō: remember, keep in mind
μνημονεύω
This verb shows the same family at work as an act of remembering, connecting the tomb-word with the living act of memory.
THE PATTERN
A place marked by death can hold a promise of life beyond what the visible scene suggests.
Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.But when this decaying thing has clothed itself in what does not decay, and this dying thing in what does not die, then the written word will come to pass, Death has been swallowed into victory.THE THREAD
This second letter, beloved, I now write to you, and in both of which I rouse your clear minds by way of a reminder.Luke’s μνῆμα (mnēma, tomb or memorial) and Peter’s ὑπόμνησις (hypomnēsis, remembrance) share the Greek μνη- family. The shared root links the place where the dead are remembered with remembrance as something actively held in mind.
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