What Does Luke 3:10 Mean?
And the crowds asked him, saying, What then shall we do?
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 the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?THE KEY
The hidden hinge is that repentance becomes a question of what gets made visible in life.
THE MEANING
This question lives wherever an inward turning reaches the next choice: what takes shape now? Here, the answer is concrete sharing and honest use of power.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that turning can remain only an inward claim: the people ask for its visible form, and the following answer names actions.
THE ROOT
ποιήσωμεν
poiēsōmen
GROWS FROM
ποιέω (poieō), stem ποιε- (poie-)
To do, make, or bring about.
“do” in this verse is poiēsōmen. The verb carries the sense of making something happen, so the question reaches beyond intention to what takes shape. The answer that follows names sharing food and clothing and refusing extortion: turning becomes visible in action.
ALSO GROWS
poiētēs: Doer, maker.
ποιητής
This related noun names someone whose action puts a word into practice; James uses it in “doers of the word” (James 1:22).
poiēma: Thing made, workmanship.
ποίημα
This branch names what making brings into being, echoing the question of what a changed heart brings about.
THE PATTERN
When a word reaches the heart, the response becomes a question about what to do next.
He has shown you, O human, what is good. And what does the LORD seek from you, but to do justice, and to hold fast to faithful love, and to walk low with your God?When they heard this, they were pierced in the heart, and said to Peter and to the rest of the sent ones, Men and brothers, what shall we do?But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.THE THREAD
Then they said to him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?The question uses the same Greek verb ποιέω (poieō, “do” or “make”) as the crowd’s question here. Jesus answers in the next verse by naming trust in the one God sent as God’s work, showing how the question of action can reach into what a person trusts.
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