What Does Luke 3:15 Mean?
And while the people were waiting, and all were reckoning in their hearts about John, whether he might be the Anointed One, or not.
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 as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not;THE KEY
Their question about John is whether the awaited anointing rests on him.
THE MEANING
Expectation can make the mind circle a person with a live question: does this one embody the anointing everyone awaits? The verse holds the question open; longing is real before recognition is settled.
THE ROOT
Χριστόν
Christon
GROWS FROM
χρι-
To anoint, to apply oil.
The Greek title Χριστός (Christos, the anointed one) carries the action of anointing inside it. The crowd is asking whether John bears that calling, not merely whether he fits a familiar label.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: To anoint.
χρίω
This verb names the action contained in Χριστός: the one they are wondering about would be marked out by anointing.
chrisma: An anointing; that with which one is anointed.
χρῖσμα
This noun shares the χρ- consonants and makes the root’s action tangible as an anointing.
διελογίζοντο
dielogizonto
GROWS FROM
λογ-
To reckon, consider, or reason.
The verb διελογίζοντο (dielogizonto, they were reasoning) presents their wondering as active consideration. The same λογ- family names reckoning, so expectation becomes a question they turn over together in their hearts.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: To reckon, count, or consider.
λογίζομαι
This verb shares the λογ- root and shows the calculating quality within their wondering about John.
logismos: A reckoning, calculation, or thought.
λογισμός
This noun shares the same root and makes visible the process of weighing whether John is the anointed one.
THE PATTERN
Expectation seeks a person through whom the promised divine action becomes visible.
Look, I am sending my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Look, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.And look, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was aligned and reverent, awaiting the comfort of Israel, and the Set-Apart Breath was upon him.He first found his own brother Simon, and said to him, We have found the Anointed One.THE THREAD
The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.Luke 3:15 asks whether John is Χριστός (Christos, the anointed one). Luke 4:18 uses ἔχρισέν (echrisen, anointed), from χρίω (chriō, to anoint), letting the verb reveal the action contained in the title.
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