What Does Luke 4:37 Mean?
And the sound of him went out into every place of the region round about.
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 the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.THE KEY
The word translated “fame” means a sound or report: what happens around him becomes audible and moves outward.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you with a picture of an encounter becoming audible: the report about him moves beyond its starting place into the surrounding region. Its effect does not stay contained in one place; the sound keeps traveling.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an encounter’s impact ends where it begins: the report moves into every surrounding place.
THE ROOT
ἦχος
ēchos
GROWS FROM
ἠχ-
ēch-
Sound, noise, or a ringing that is heard.
English “fame” can sound like a settled status attached to a person. ἦχος keeps it in motion as sound or report: the event becomes audible, then travels into the surrounding region.
ALSO GROWS
ēcheō: To sound or resound.
ἠχέω
This branch keeps the report in the realm of something heard, not simply a reputation held in thought.
exēcheō: To sound out or echo forth.
ἐξηχέω
This related word describes a message sounding outward, as in 1 Thessalonians 1:8.
ἐξεπορεύετο
exeporeueto
GROWS FROM
πορευ-
poreu-
To go or travel; with ἐκ (ek), to go out.
“went out” in this verse is exeporeueto. The verb pictures the report as moving through space, not remaining fixed as a reputation. Its imperfect form presents that going-out as unfolding across the region.
ALSO GROWS
poreuomai: To go, travel, or proceed.
πορεύομαι
It shows that the report’s spread is a movement from one place toward others.
poreia: A journey or course.
πορεία
This related noun makes the outward movement feel like a path the report travels.
THE PATTERN
What becomes known does not remain at its point of origin; it travels outward through many places.
Their measuring cord goes out through all the earth, and their words to the edge of the world; in them he set a tent for the sun.How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who makes wholeness heard, who brings good news of good, who makes deliverance heard, who says to Zion, Your God governs.And it was known throughout all Joppa, and many leaned their weight on the Lord.THE THREAD
For from you the word of the Lord has echoed out, not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your full weight leaning toward God has gone out, so that we have no need to speak anything.The Greek noun ἦχος (ēchos), “sound” or “report,” belongs to the same sound-word family as ἐξηχέω (exēcheō), “sound out,” in this verse. Luke pictures the report moving outward from him; Thessalonians pictures the word of the Lord sounding outward from a community.
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