What Does Luke 5:22 Mean?
But Jesus perceived their reckonings, and answering, said to them, Why do you reason in your hearts?
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
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts?THE KEY
Jesus does not merely hear what is said; he perceives the inward argument and asks it to step into the open.
THE MEANING
Your inner reasoning is not invisible to Jesus. “Thoughts” here points to inward deliberation, and his question brings that hidden reasoning into speech.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that unspoken reasoning is hidden simply because it has not been said dissolves here.
THE ROOT
διαλογισμούς
dialogismous
GROWS FROM
λογίζομαι
logizomai
To reckon, consider, or work something out.
“reckonings” in this verse is dialogismous. English “thoughts” can sound like passing ideas; this word points toward deliberation or inner argument. The previous verse uses a related verb for the scribes’ reasoning, linking what they hold inside with the argument they form.
ALSO GROWS
dialogizomai: To reason, deliberate, or discuss.
διαλογίζομαι
This related verb describes the scribes’ reasoning in Luke 5:21, showing that the “thoughts” Jesus perceives are active deliberations.
logismos: A calculation or reasoning.
λογισμός
It preserves the sense of weighing something out, showing the heart’s thoughts as considered reasoning.
ἐπιγνούς
epignous
GROWS FROM
γινώσκω
ginōskō
To know, recognize, or perceive; knowing by encounter, not merely by information.
“perceived” in this verse is epignous. The verb carries the sense of recognizing or knowing. The sentence presents Jesus as perceiving what is being reasoned inwardly, before it is spoken aloud.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: To know, recognize, or perceive.
γινώσκω
This base verb supplies the knowing within Jesus’ act of perception.
epignōsis: Recognition or knowledge.
ἐπίγνωσις
This related noun shares the prefixed word family and echoes the movement from seeing something to recognizing what it is.
THE PATTERN
The heart’s hidden reasoning remains visible to God and can be discerned before it is spoken.
You perceive my sitting and my rising, and from afar you separate out my thought.But the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have pushed him away. The LORD does not see as the human sees. The human sees what is outside, but the LORD sees the heart.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
And the scribes and the separated ones began to reason, saying, Who is this one who speaks blasphemies? Who is able to release shortcomings but God alone?The scribes’ unspoken argument in 5:21 becomes the very thing Jesus addresses in 5:22. “Reason” and “thoughts” name the same inward deliberation, first formed within them and then brought into the open.
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