What Does Luke 3:30 Mean?
Who was the son of Simeon, who was the son of Judah, who was the son of Joseph, who was the son of Jonan, who was the son of Eliakim.
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 Simeon, which was the son of Juda, which was the son of Joseph, which was the son of Jonan, which was the son of Eliakim,THE KEY
The Greek repeats “of” five times but leaves “son” unstated, presenting these names as one chain of belonging rather than five isolated lives.
THE MEANING
This line places each name inside a relationship that came before it; no one here stands alone. Your life, too, is shaped by people and meanings that precede you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you are an isolated beginning, with no inheritance beyond yourself, does not hold inside this chain of names.
THE ROOT
Ἰούδα
Iouda
GROWS FROM
Ἰουδ-
The Greek stem of the name Judah, carried here as an ancestor’s name and extended into words for Judean identity.
“Juda” in this verse is Iouda. The name is the Greek form of Hebrew יְהוּדָה (Yəhūdāh, Judah), linked in Genesis 29:35 to יָדָה (yādāh, praise or give thanks). The lineage therefore carries a name whose own story is praise, tucked inside the repeated chain of descent.
ALSO GROWS
Ioudaios: Judean; a person identified with Judah or Judea.
Ἰουδαῖος
This form grows from the Judah stem into a people’s identity, showing how one ancestor’s name can extend across a line.
Ioudaismos: Judean custom or way of life.
Ἰουδαϊσμός
The same stem can name a way associated with Judah, so the ancestral name carries identity beyond a single person.
THE PATTERN
Scripture traces identity through named relationships, making each person a link in a line that exceeds them.
This is the book of the births of Adam. In the day that God created the ground-being, in the likeness of God he made him.Now these are the births of Perez. Perez brought forth Hezron.The book of the origin of Jesus, the anointed one, son of David, son of Abraham.THE THREAD
And she conceived again, and bore a son, and she said, Now I will extend my hands to the LORD. Therefore she called his name Judah, Praise, and she stood from bearing.Genesis pairs Judah’s name with יָדָה (yādāh, praise): the name itself carries that meaning. Luke preserves Judah’s name in Greek as Ἰούδα (Iouda), so this genealogy carries that name-nature forward within its chain.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us