What Does Luke 5:38 Mean?
But new wine must be poured into new wineskins, and both are kept together.
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
But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.THE KEY
The Greek calls the wine νέον (neon, young or fresh) and the wineskins καινούς (kainous, new or fresh in condition): both are preserved when the living contents meet a fitting vessel.
THE MEANING
What is newly alive and what receives it both need to remain whole. Preservation includes the wine and the wineskins, not just the container. The verse shows that what carries new life matters as much as what it carries.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a mismatch costs only the container: what it holds can spill too, so both are at stake.
THE ROOT
νέον
neon
GROWS FROM
νεο-
neos
Young, recent, or newly produced; new in time or age.
English uses “new” for both the wine and the wineskins, but the Greek describes the wine as νέον (neon, young or fresh). It gives the contents a sense of newness in age, distinct from the skins’ newness in condition.
ALSO GROWS
neotēs: Youth
νεότης
This branch carries the same quality of being young or fresh that marks the wine.
neōteros: Younger
νεώτερος
Its comparative form makes the time-and-age sense of this word family visible.
καινούς
kainous
GROWS FROM
καιν-
kain-
New, fresh, or renewed in quality or condition.
The skins are καινούς (kainous, new or fresh in condition), not described with the same Greek word as the wine. English hides the distinction: the verse pairs young wine with a vessel renewed to receive it.
ALSO GROWS
kainotēs: Newness
καινότης
This noun expresses the fresh condition named by the wineskins’ adjective.
anakainoō: Renew or make new
ἀνακαινόω
This branch shows the root’s connection to becoming fresh or new again.
συντηροῦνται
syntērountai
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
Keep, guard, or watch over; συν- adds the sense of keeping together or intact.
“kept together” in this verse is syntērountai. The verb translated “preserved” is συντηρέω (syntēreō, keep intact), and its subject is both the wine and the skins. The wording makes preservation mutual: the vessel holds, and what it holds remains whole.
ALSO GROWS
tēreō: Keep, guard, or watch
τηρέω
This is the base verb behind the language of preservation.
tērēsis: Keeping or custody
τήρησις
This noun from the same family names the act of keeping something safe.
THE PATTERN
Life remains intact when its vessel is renewed to fit what it carries.
Nor do they pour new wine into old wineskins, for otherwise the skins burst and the wine is poured out, and the skins perish. But they pour new wine into new skins, and both are kept together.A new heart I will give you, and a new breath I will set within you. I will take the stone heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.So if anyone is in the Anointed One, he is a new creation. What was old has passed by. Look, all things have become new.THE THREAD
But Mary kept all these words, casting them together in her heart.Luke uses the same Greek verb, συντηρέω (syntēreō, keep intact), for Mary keeping these things in her heart. Here, that same verb describes the wine and skins being preserved, linking what is held inwardly with what remains whole outwardly.
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