What Does Luke 5:36 Mean?
And he spoke also a parable to them. No one tears a piece from a new garment and lays it upon an old one. Otherwise the new will tear, and the piece taken from the new will not sound together with the old.
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 he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.THE KEY
A patch cut from the new tears its source and still cannot sound together with the old.
THE MEANING
A piece cut from the new garment tears it, then still fails to join the old. The attempted repair leaves the source torn and the mismatch unresolved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a new thing can repair an old form simply by being cut down to fit it.
THE ROOT
σχίσει
schisei
GROWS FROM
σχιζ
schiz
to split or tear apart
“tears a piece” in this verse is schisei. The garment’s rent and a division among people share this Greek root. English separates those images, while the root reveals the same kind of break in both.
ALSO GROWS
schizō: to tear or split
σχίζω
This is the verb’s root form: the new garment is split by the attempted repair.
schisma: a split or division
σχίσμα
The same root names a division among people in John 7:43, linking the garment’s tear with a human split.
συμφωνήσει
symphōnēsei
GROWS FROM
φων
phōn
sound or voice
“will not sound together” in this verse is symphōnēsei. The word translated “agreeth” carries the sense of sounding together. The patch and the old garment do not share a resonance; placing one against the other does not create harmony.
ALSO GROWS
phōnē: voice or sound
φωνή
This root keeps sound inside the verse’s idea of agreement.
symphōnia: harmony or music
συμφωνία
This related word makes the image concrete: agreement is like parts sounding together.
THE PATTERN
The new exposes the limits of an old form that cannot hold it.
No one sews a patch of new cloth onto an old garment, or else the new patch that fills it lifts away from the old, and the tear grows worse.And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be poured out, and the skins will perish.In that he says, 'A new covenant,' he has made the first old. And what is wearing thin and growing old is near to passing out of sight.THE THREAD
So a split arose among the crowd because of him.Luke’s “rent” is σχίσει, while John calls the division among the people σχίσμα, from the same Greek root. A tear in cloth and a split among people are named as one kind of break.
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