What Does Luke 5:31 Mean?
And Jesus answered and said to them, Those who are strong have no need of a healer, but those who are sick.
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 Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.THE KEY
The physician is not reserved for the already whole; sickness is exactly what makes care necessary.
THE MEANING
You are not outside care because you are unwell; the verse places the physician’s purpose precisely where illness is present. Its contrast also reaches anyone who sees no need: perceived wholeness leaves the physician with no stated work to do.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that needing help makes you unworthy of it dissolves here: illness is precisely the condition that brings the physician’s care into view.
THE ROOT
ὑγιαίνοντες
hygiainontes
GROWS FROM
ὑγι-
Health, soundness; being well.
“strong” in this verse is hygiainontes. The word rendered “whole” is ὑγιαίνοντες (hygiainontes, those in health), from ὑγιαίνω (hygiainō, be healthy or sound). Its family gives “whole” the concrete sense of sound health in this physician’s image.
ALSO GROWS
hygiēs: Healthy, sound.
ὑγιής
This related form names the quality of being in good health that the verse describes.
hygeia: Health, soundness.
ὑγίεια
This noun names the state expressed by the verse’s word for those who are whole.
κακῶς ἔχοντες
kakōs echontes
GROWS FROM
κακ-
Bad, harmful, ill.
The phrase for “sick” is κακῶς ἔχοντες (kakōs echontes, literally “having badly”); the adverb describes a person’s condition. The same word family can describe moral badness elsewhere, but here the phrase speaks of ill health, so need itself is not a verdict on character.
ALSO GROWS
kakos: Bad, harmful, ill.
κακός
This adjective shares the κακ- stem behind κακῶς, the word describing how the sick are “having.”
kakia: Badness, malice.
κακία
This related noun shows how the same family can describe badness, sharpening the distinction between moral fault and the illness described here.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yēšūaʿ
GROWS FROM
י־שׁ־ע
Deliver; bring into spaciousness from distress.
The name Jesus represents Hebrew Yeshua (יֵשׁוּעַ, Yēšūaʿ, deliverance), from י־שׁ־ע (y-sh-ʿ, deliver). His name carries deliverance into this scene, where those who need a physician are named as the ones for whom care matters.
ALSO GROWS
yāšaʿ: Deliver, bring into spaciousness.
יָשַׁע
This verb is the root’s action of bringing someone out of distress.
yeshuʿah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun shares the name’s root and expresses the deliverance carried in Yeshua.
THE PATTERN
Need is the condition that brings healing and care into view.
He mends the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.For I will bring up healing for you, and I will heal you of your wounds, declares the LORD, for they called you the driven away, saying, This is Zion, no one seeks her.Is anyone among you without strength? Let him call to himself the older ones of the assembly, and let them pray over him, rubbing him with oil in the nature of the LORD.THE THREAD
Beloved, concerning all things I pray that your way goes well and that you are whole, just as your living soul goes well.“Be in health” translates ὑγιαίνειν (hygiainien, to be healthy or sound), from the same Greek word family as “they that are whole” in Luke. One verse names those who are in health; the other uses that same root for health itself.
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