What Does Luke 24:10 Mean?
It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who said these things to the sent ones.
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
It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.THE KEY
The sent ones are first shown receiving the message from women.
THE MEANING
This verse places you on the receiving side of a report carried by women whose names are spoken aloud. Those called to carry the message stand here as listeners, while the women are its witnesses now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The assumption that commissioned messengers must always be the first source of the message is undone: here, the apostles receive it from the women.
THE ROOT
ἀποστόλους
apostolous
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω (apostellō), from ἀπό (apo) + στέλλω (stellō)
To send away or forth; to dispatch.
“Apostles” names people who are sent forth. Here, the sent ones do not originate the report: they receive it from women, so their role includes listening as well as carrying a message.
ALSO GROWS
apostellō: Send forth or dispatch.
ἀποστέλλω
This is the verb behind the apostles’ name and makes their sending explicit.
apostolē: A sending, commission, or mission.
ἀποστολή
The word for a commission belongs to the same sending family.
apostolos: A sent one, messenger.
ἀπόστολος
This is the singular form of the title used for the apostles receiving the women’s report.
ἔλεγον
elegon
GROWS FROM
λέγω (legō; stem λεγ-)
To say, speak, or tell.
The Greek imperfect presents their telling as unfolding, where English “told” can sound like a single completed act. The women’s speech is the report itself, and the apostles are shown receiving it.
ALSO GROWS
logos: A word, account, or message.
λόγος
This related word makes visible how spoken words become a report that can be received.
dialogos: Conversation or exchange of speech.
διάλογος
The same word family can describe speech moving between people, as it does here from the women to the apostles.
THE PATTERN
A message can reach recognized leaders through a witness outside their expected role, placing them in the position of receivers.
And she said to them, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Say to the man who sent you to me,Mary Magdalene came and brought word to the disciples that she had perceived the Lord, and that he had said these things to her.And he began to speak with his whole voice in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him in and laid out for him more accurately the way of God.THE THREAD
And he made twelve, so that they might be with him, and so that he might send them out to herald.Mark uses the sending verb ἀποστέλλω (apostellō), from the same word family as “apostles” in Luke. Mark names their sending; Luke shows them receiving a report before they carry one.
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