What Does Luke 24:9 Mean?
And they turned back from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven, and to all the rest.
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 returned from the sepulchre, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.THE KEY
The tomb is named as a memorial, but remembrance does not end there: the women carry its news into the whole community.
THE MEANING
What you encounter at a place of loss can move into shared speech instead of remaining there. The report reaches the eleven and all the rest, passing beyond the first circle and becoming communal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that a burial place gets the last word dissolves: the women leave the memorial, and their report reaches the whole community.
THE ROOT
μνημεῖον
mnēmeion
GROWS FROM
μνημ-
mnēm-
Memory, remembrance; the word family includes both remembering and memorials.
The Greek word for sepulchre, μνημεῖον (mnēmeion, tomb or memorial), belongs to the word family of memory and remembrance. The women leave that memorial and tell what happened, carrying remembrance from the burial place into shared testimony.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This related word makes clear that the tomb’s name belongs to a memory-family, not only to a place-name.
mimnēskomai: remember, recall
μιμνῄσκομαι
The related verb appears as “remember” in Luke 24:6, connecting the memorial with words carried forward in memory.
ἀπήγγειλαν
apēngeilan
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
angel-
To announce or report a message.
“told” in this verse is apēngeilan. The verb ἀπαγγέλλω (apangellō, announce or report) carries the sense of delivering news. Its word family also gives ἄγγελος (angelos, messenger): here the women carry the report to the eleven and everyone else.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: messenger
ἄγγελος
The shared word family links announcing the news with carrying a message.
angelia: message, report
ἀγγελία
This related noun names what the women deliver: a message passed from witness to community.
ὑποστρέψασαι
hypostrepsasai
GROWS FROM
στρεφ-
stref-
Turn, turn back.
“turned back” in this verse is hypostrepsasai. The verb ὑποστρέφω (hypostrephō, return or turn back) makes the movement part of the verse’s meaning. The women do not remain at the memorial; their turning back carries the report toward others.
ALSO GROWS
strephō: turn
στρέφω
The basic turning sense gives shape to the women’s movement away from the tomb.
epistrephō: turn back, return
ἐπιστρέφω
This related turning verb echoes the return movement that brings the women’s report to others.
THE PATTERN
What is received as witness becomes shared testimony when it is carried into the community.
Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Is this not the Anointed One?For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
He is not here, but has been raised. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee.Luke’s word for “remember,” μνήσθητε (mnēsthēte, remember), belongs to the same remembrance family as μνημεῖον (mnēmeion, tomb or memorial). The women carry those remembered words from the memorial into the wider community.
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