What Does Luke 5:29 Mean?
And Levi made a great feast for him in his house, and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and others reclining with them.
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 Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.THE KEY
The Greek word for “feast” carries the root of receiving: Levi’s house becomes a place of welcome where Jesus and a large company gather.
THE MEANING
Levi’s home holds Jesus and a large, mixed company at one table. Welcome gathers them there without making the room uniform first.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you must first become respectable before you can be received into Jesus’ company.
THE ROOT
δοχή
dochē
GROWS FROM
δέχομαι
to receive, welcome
The word for feast, δοχή, grows from the Greek family of δέχομαι: to receive or welcome. The meal is a reception, making room for Jesus and a large company in Levi’s house.
ALSO GROWS
dechomai: receive, welcome
δέχομαι
The root beneath “feast” points to welcome as part of what the gathering does.
apodechomai: receive, welcome
ἀποδέχομαι
This related form keeps the idea of reception visible: a gathering opens space for those who come.
prosdechomai: receive, welcome
προσδέχομαι
This related form appears when Jesus is described as receiving people who are eating with him.
THE PATTERN
Welcome becomes visible when people who are usually kept apart share a place at the table.
And I will take a morsel of bread, and prop up your hearts. After that you shall pass on, for therefore you have crossed over to your servant. And they said, So you shall make it, as you have spoken.And the separated ones and the writers murmured, saying, "This man receives those who miss the mark, and eats with them."Therefore take hold of one another, as the Anointed One also took hold of us, to the end that God is given weight.THE THREAD
And the separated ones and the writers murmured, saying, "This man receives those who miss the mark, and eats with them."“Receiveth” translates προσδέχομαι (prosdechomai), a word from the same Greek root family as the “feast” in Levi’s house. Luke makes the connection plain: receiving people and eating with them belong together.
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