What Does Luke 24:17 Mean?
And he said to them, What are these words you throw back and forth with one another as you walk, and why are your faces dark?
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 he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad?THE KEY
The Greek pictures grief-laden words being thrown back and forth between companions on the road.
THE MEANING
The question meets you in conversation while sadness remains visible. The words you exchange can carry grief even as you keep moving. Motion does not mean sorrow has passed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that keeping on walking and talking means grief is gone: sorrow can remain visible in the middle of both.
THE ROOT
ἀντιβάλλετε
antibállete
GROWS FROM
βάλλω (ballō), with ἀντί (antí)
To throw or cast; with antí, to throw back and forth or exchange.
“throw back and forth” in this verse is antibállete. The verb pictures the companions tossing words between them as they walk. “Communications” can sound abstract in English; the Greek gives their exchange motion, with sorrow carried from one person to the other.
ALSO GROWS
ekbállō: To throw out or cast out.
ἐκβάλλω
It keeps the image of words or things being cast from one place or person.
parabállō: To place beside or compare.
παραβάλλω
It shares the throwing image and suggests things brought alongside one another.
λόγοι
lógoi
GROWS FROM
λεγ-/λογ- (leg-/log-)
To say or speak; a word, statement, or account.
These are actual words being spoken, not merely an unspoken mood. The verse holds the speech and the sadness together: grief is present in what the companions say to one another.
ALSO GROWS
légō: To say or speak.
λέγω
It makes the spoken quality of their exchange explicit.
logízomai: To consider, reckon, or reason.
λογίζομαι
It shows how this word-family can extend from spoken words to the thoughts and considerations carried through them.
THE PATTERN
Grief becomes visible when it is given words, and companionship can meet it there.
And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord. I am a woman of hard breath. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have poured out my living soul before the LORD.Why are you bowed down, O my living soul? Why do you roar over me? Wait upon God. I shall yet extend my hands to him for the deliverances of his face.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.THE THREAD
And they said to one another, Was not our heart burning within us as he spoke with us on the road, and as he threw open the writings to us?The same road and shared conversation continue, but the companions now recognize what has been happening within them. The question that meets their sadness opens into a conversation through which their hearts and the scriptures become clear.
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