What Does Luke 5:27 Mean?
And after these things he went out and gazed upon a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth, and said to him, Follow me.
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 after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.THE KEY
“Follow me” is an invitation to join a way, and Levi’s name carries the sense of joining.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you in the middle of what occupies you: you are seen there, and a direction opens beyond that place. “Follow me” describes joining another’s way, not merely moving to a different location. The verse gives the invitation, leaving the response open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The false belief is that the role occupying you is the whole of your identity and fixes your next step.
THE ROOT
Ἀκολούθει
akolouthei
GROWS FROM
ἀκολουθ-
akolouth-
The Greek word family carries the sense of accompanying or going along with someone.
The command holds more than movement behind another person: it names joining that person’s way. English “follow” can sound like keeping at a distance; this word brings companionship into the invitation.
ALSO GROWS
akolouthos: follower, attendant
ἀκόλουθος
The related word names someone attached to another’s path, bringing the sense of company into the command.
akolouthia: sequence, succession
ἀκολουθία
What follows comes in the wake of what precedes; the word family links following with the path that unfolds from it.
לֵוִי
Lēwī
GROWS FROM
לוה
l-w-h
To join, attach, or accompany.
Levi’s Hebrew name is associated with joining. At the moment Jesus invites him to follow, the name carries a sound of attachment that English leaves hidden.
ALSO GROWS
lāwâ: to join, accompany
לָוָה
This verb gives the root’s central sense of becoming joined to another.
livyat ḥen: a garland of favor
לִוְיַת חֵן
In Proverbs 1:9, the related word pictures something that accompanies and adorns; the root’s sense of joining reaches beyond a person’s name.
THE PATTERN
A summons meets someone within an established life and opens movement into an uncharted path.
And the LORD said to Abram, Go away from your land, from your land of birth, and from your father's house, to the land I will let you see.So he walked from there, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth. And Elijah crossed over to him, and threw his mantle upon him.The next day Jesus wanted to, and went out into Galilee, and found Philip, and said to him, Follow me.THE THREAD
And he said to them all, If anyone wants to come after me, let them say no to themselves, and lift up their cross day by day, and follow me.Luke uses the same Greek word family for “follow” in both verses. Here the command meets Levi in one moment; in Luke 9:23, following becomes the continuing shape of joining Jesus’ way.
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