What Does Luke 5:23 Mean?
Which costs less toil, to say, Your shortcomings are released to you, or to say, Rise up and walk?
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
Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?THE KEY
The verse sets an unseen release beside a visible rising, making the body a sign of what words alone cannot show.
THE MEANING
Release from what you have missed and the body’s rising stand together: one is spoken, the other can be seen. The question presses on what counts as evidence when an inward release cannot be seen directly.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that release is only an empty claim because no one can see it.
THE ROOT
ἀφίενται
aphíentai
GROWS FROM
ἀφίημι
aphíēmi
To send away, leave, or release.
The word translated “forgiven” carries the sense of something being released or sent away. The verse places that unseen release beside a body’s visible rising, opening a connection that the English word “forgiven” can leave hidden.
ALSO GROWS
áphesis: Release, dismissal, or remission.
ἄφεσις
This noun from the same word family makes forgiveness sound like a loosening of what had been held.
aphíēmi: To release, leave, or forgive.
ἀφίημι
The same verb can describe letting something go or releasing a debt, bringing the verse’s “forgiven” into the language of release.
ἁμαρτίας
hamartías
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτάνω
hamartánō
To miss or fail to reach a mark.
The word rendered “sins” belongs to a family that carries the image of missing. Set beside “forgiven,” it presents the movement not as adding something to the reader, but as releasing what has been missed.
ALSO GROWS
hamartía: A missing, error, or offense.
ἁμαρτία
This is the noun used here; its “missing” sense sharpens what is being released.
hamártēma: An error or act of missing.
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun makes the connection between a miss and the release of that miss more visible.
ἔγειρε
égeire
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeírō
To raise, awaken, or rouse.
“Rise up” in this verse is égeire. The command to rise belongs to a word family that can describe waking as well as being raised. Here, the inward word of release is placed beside a waking, bodily movement that others can see.
ALSO GROWS
egeírō: To raise or awaken.
ἐγείρω
This verb can speak of getting up from a resting position, as it does here.
égersis: A rising or resurrection.
ἔγερσις
This related noun carries the same rising movement into the language of being raised.
THE PATTERN
Release and bodily restoration are shown together as inward change made visible in a person’s rising.
Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, Your shortcomings are released to you, or to say, Arise, take up your mat, and walk?Who releases all your crookedness; who heals all your sicknesses.THE THREAD
Which is easier, to say to the paralyzed man, Your shortcomings are released to you, or to say, Arise, take up your mat, and walk?Mark uses the same Greek verb for “be forgiven,” carrying the sense of release. Its parallel wording makes the question’s structure visible: the spoken release is set beside a bodily rising that can be seen.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us