What Does Luke 3:29 Mean?
Who was the son of Jose, who was the son of Eliezer, who was the son of Jorim, who was the son of Matthat, who was the son of Levi.
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
Which was the son of Jose, which was the son of Eliezer, which was the son of Jorim, which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi,THE KEY
The Greek stacks “of” relationships where the KJV supplies “son of,” presenting this line as a chain of belonging.
THE MEANING
Jose, Eliezer, Jorim, Matthat, and Levi stand in a sequence, each name connected to the names around it. The verse presents a life as part of a continuing line, rather than as something self-contained.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a person stands apart from those who came before; this verse places each name within a continuing lineage.
THE ROOT
Λευί
Leuī
GROWS FROM
Λευι
The Greek name stem for Levi. The name’s Hebrew origin is associated with joining or attachment, as Leah’s naming explanation shows in Genesis 29:34.
The Greek text gives Levi as a name, not as a Greek common word with its own lexical root; Λευι is the name stem. Its Hebrew name-story carries the sense of joining, so the final name in this chain echoes the verse’s repeated relations.
ALSO GROWS
Leuítēs: Levite; a member of Levi’s line.
Λευίτης
This Greek form carries the same name stem into a word for someone belonging to Levi’s lineage.
Leuitikós: Levitical; pertaining to Levi or the Levites.
Λευιτικός
The same name stem marks what belongs to the line, extending the name into a shared identity.
THE PATTERN
A name and place in a family line are carried through relationships that extend beyond one person.
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.And truly, those of the sons of Levi who receive the priesthood have a command to take tithes from the people according to the instruction, from their brothers, though they too have come out of the loins of Abraham.And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became a sharer in common of the root and the fatness of the olive tree.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now this time my husband will cling to me, because I have borne him three sons. Therefore his name was called Levi, Joined.Genesis gives the naming story behind Levi: “my husband be joined unto me.” That meaning of joining echoes the repeated relations in Luke’s line, where each name is held within a chain of belonging.
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