What Does Luke 3:20 Mean?
He added yet this above all, that he shut John up in the guardhouse.
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
Added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.THE KEY
Herod adds custody to his harm: the word translated “prison” carries the sense of guarded keeping.
THE MEANING
The verse names confinement as Herod’s next added act against John. It lets the reader see how authority can answer a voice with custody, while holding the force of that act in plain view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that imprisonment is only a neutral change of location; this verse names it as Herod’s added act of coercion.
THE ROOT
φυλακή
phylakē
GROWS FROM
φυλακ-
phylak-
Guarding, watching, keeping in custody
“guardhouse” in this verse is phylakē. English presents prison as a place, while the source word carries the sense of guarded custody. The verse makes Herod’s act one of keeping a living voice under watch, with “added ... above all” marking custody as another deliberate harm.
ALSO GROWS
phylassō: guard, keep, watch
φυλάσσω
This verb names the act behind the noun: a prison is where someone is kept under guard.
phylax: guard, watcher
φύλαξ
The guard is the human agent of that keeping, making the confinement enforced and relational.
THE PATTERN
Power can bind a truth-teller’s body, but it cannot make the message itself captive.
Then Pashur struck Jeremiah the prophet, and set him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.Peter was therefore kept in prison, but prayer was stretched out by the assembly toward God for him.In this I bear ill, even unto bonds, as one who works ill; but the word of God is not bound.THE THREAD
Peter was therefore kept in prison, but prayer was stretched out by the assembly toward God for him.Luke uses φυλακή (phylakē, prison or guarded custody) for both John’s and Peter’s confinement. The shared word reveals the same mechanism: a messenger is kept under guard, while what moves beyond that custody remains active.
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