What Does Luke 3:5 Mean?
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth.
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
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;THE KEY
The Greek word that lowers a mountain also names the lowering of a person: the way opens by leveling what rises above it.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks now as a declaration that the way is being made passable across every kind of unevenness. Hollow places are filled, high places lowered, crooked stretches straightened, and rough ones smoothed. No part of the terrain is left outside this remaking.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a difficult, crooked, or uneven way is permanent and cannot be made passable.
THE ROOT
ταπεινωθήσεται
tapeinōthēsetai
GROWS FROM
ταπειν-
low; lowering or bringing low
The verb translated “brought low” belongs to the same Greek word family as words for being humble or abased. The landscape’s lowering and a person’s humbling share one word-family: both describe what happens when something elevated is brought down.
ALSO GROWS
tapeinos: lowly, humble
ταπεινός
The same family carries the sense of being low in status or position, linking the mountain’s lowered height with human humility.
tapeinōsis: lowliness, abasement
ταπείνωσις
This noun names the state of being brought low, showing that the verse’s change in elevation has a human parallel in the same Greek family.
πληρωθήσεται
plērōthēsetai
GROWS FROM
πληρ-
fill to fullness; bring to completion
The verb for filling also carries the sense of bringing something to fullness or completion. A valley is not bypassed in the making of the way; its hollow is filled as the surrounding heights are lowered.
ALSO GROWS
plēroō: fill, complete, fulfill
πληρόω
This is the verb family of the word used for the valley, holding filling and completion together.
plērōma: fullness, that which fills
πλήρωμα
The noun makes the result visible: the valley moves from hollow to fullness as the route is reshaped.
THE PATTERN
God’s way-making repeatedly reverses unevenness, bringing down what is elevated and raising what is low.
Every valley is lifted, and every mountain and hill is brought low; the crooked is made straight, and the rough places become a plain.The LORD strips, and makes rich; he lays low, and lifts high.He has pulled the mighty down from their seats, and lifted up the low.THE THREAD
For everyone who lifts himself will be brought low; and the one who lowers himself will be lifted up.The verb translated “brought low” in Luke 3:5 belongs to the same Greek family as “abased” and “humbleth” here. The mountain’s lowering and a person’s humbling are expressed through the same word-family, carrying the image of a levelled road into human elevation.
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