What Does Luke 4:21 Mean?
And he began to say to them, Today this writing has been filled in your ears.
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 he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.THE KEY
The promise reaches its fullness in the very hearing of it, making fulfillment present now.
THE MEANING
The scripture Jesus has just read is fulfilled in the listeners’ hearing. The promise is no longer only words on a page: what it announces is present to them in this moment.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief this undoes is that the promise can only remain something distant, still waiting to arrive.
THE ROOT
πεπλήρωται
peplērōtai
GROWS FROM
πληρ- (plēr-), the stem of πληρόω (plēroō)
To fill, make full, bring to completion.
“filled” in this verse is peplērōtai. The form πεπλήρωται (peplērōtai, “has been fulfilled”) presents the fulfillment as accomplished with a continuing result. Its root also carries the sense of filling to fullness, so the promise is present in the very hearing of it.
ALSO GROWS
plēroō: To fill or bring to completion.
πληρόω
This is the verb family of the verse’s “fulfilled”: what the scripture announces has reached fullness in the listeners’ hearing.
plērōma: Fullness; that which fills.
πλήρωμα
This related word makes visible the idea inside “fulfilled”: the promise is not just repeated, but present in its fullness.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word reaches its fullness as it becomes present in the world and in the hearer.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what I delight in, and shall break through in the thing to which I sent it.Do not think that I came to loosen the instruction or the prophets. I came not to loosen, but to fill.THE THREAD
Do not think that I came to loosen the instruction or the prophets. I came not to loosen, but to fill.The word translated “fulfil” belongs to the same Greek verb family as “fulfilled” here. In Luke, that fullness is heard as present today; in Matthew, it is the law and prophets brought to their full expression.
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