What Does Luke 5:13 Mean?
And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, I will; be made clean. And straightway the leprosy went away from him.
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 put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.THE KEY
The hand reaches him while the affliction is still present, and what departs is the leprosy, not the person.
THE MEANING
You are not identical with what afflicts you: the verse names the leprosy as what departs, while the person remains. Cleansing appears as release from what has marked the body, and it comes immediately.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that you must be well before you can be met is undone here: the hand reaches him before the leprosy leaves.
THE ROOT
ἥψατο
hēpsato
GROWS FROM
ἅπτω
haptō
Fasten to, attach, or kindle; in the middle voice, touch.
The English “touched” can sound momentary, but this Greek word family also carries the sense of contact and bodily connection. Here the hand makes contact before the command, and the affliction, not the man, is what departs.
ALSO GROWS
haptomai: Touch, take hold of, fasten oneself to.
ἅπτομαι
This is the middle-voice verb used for Jesus touching him: the contact is physical and direct.
haphē: Contact; a bodily joint or connection.
ἁφή
In Ephesians 4:16, a related word names the joints through which the body is joined and supplied, linking touch with bodily connection.
καθαρίσθητι
katharísthēti
GROWS FROM
καθαρ-
kathar-
Clean or pure; the state of being clean and the act of cleansing.
“clean” in this verse is katharísthēti. The command belongs to a word family that names both cleanness and cleansing. The next clause shows the change plainly: the leprosy itself leaves at once.
ALSO GROWS
katharós: Clean, pure.
καθαρός
It names the state expressed by the command to be clean.
katharízō: Cleanse, make clean.
καθαρίζω
It names the action of cleansing that the command declares.
katharismós: Cleansing, purification.
καθαρισμός
It makes the cleansing process explicit within the same word family.
THE PATTERN
Healing appears as an affliction or its effect leaves, making restored life visible.
Then he went down and immersed himself seven times in Jordan, according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh returned like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.Who releases all your crookedness; who heals all your sicknesses.And he said to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, the Sent. So he went and washed, and came seeing.THE THREAD
from whom the whole body, joined together and knit by every joint that supplies, according to the working in the measure of each part, makes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.Luke’s ἥψατο (hēpsato, touched) belongs to the same Greek word family as ἁφή (haphē, contact or joint), rendered “joint” here. In Luke, a hand meets one afflicted; here, bodily contact is how the whole body is joined and supplied.
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