What Does Luke 6:19 Mean?
And the whole crowd sought to touch him, for strength went out from him and healed them all.
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 the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.THE KEY
The “virtue” leaving Jesus is active power, and the crowd’s touch is where that outward-moving power meets the body and becomes healing.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you in the present: the life in Jesus moves outward as active power, and your reaching toward him becomes contact with that power. Healing reaches the whole multitude, with none in the scene held outside its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that restoration is reserved for a select few is undone here: the verse says the power heals the whole multitude.
THE ROOT
δύναμις
dynamis
GROWS FROM
δύναμαι / δύναμις
Be able; capacity or power.
“strength” in this verse is dynamis. The word translated “virtue” names power or capacity at work. Beside “went out,” it gives the verse a movement: power flows from Jesus and reaches those around him.
ALSO GROWS
dynamai: To be able, have power.
δύναμαι
The shared word family presents the healing power as effective capacity, not merely a quality or reputation.
dynatos: Able, powerful.
δυνατός
This branch makes the same link between power and what can actually be done.
ἅπτεσθαι
haptesthai
GROWS FROM
ἅπτω / ἅπτομαι
To attach, fasten, or touch; in some uses, to kindle.
The crowd seeks contact that attaches them to Jesus. The root’s sense of fastening gives the touch the force of connection, fitting the verse’s picture of power going out and healing reaching them.
ALSO GROWS
hapto: To fasten or touch; also to kindle.
ἅπτω
It preserves the sense of contact as an active joining, not a distant glance.
haphē: Contact or connection; also a joint.
ἁφή
This related word can name the point of connection through which a body is joined together, echoing the verse’s touch and healing.
ἰᾶτο
iato
GROWS FROM
ἰα-
ia-
To heal or cure.
“healed” in this verse is iato. The healing verb belongs to a word family that also names healing and the healer. Here restoration is not an abstraction: the power’s outward movement reaches people and cures them.
ALSO GROWS
iasis: Healing or cure.
ἴασις
The noun names the restoration enacted in the verse’s verb.
iatros: A physician or healer.
ἰατρός
This branch names the one associated with healing, connecting the act of cure to its source.
THE PATTERN
Restoration passes through contact with the life that carries it, reaching bodies where that life is touched.
And it came to be, as they were burying a man, behold, they saw a raiding band of men, and they cast the man into the cave of Elisha. And when the man was let down, and touched the bones of Elisha, he came to life, and stood up on his feet.And wherever he went, into villages, or cities, or fields, they laid the ones without strength in the marketplaces, and urged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and as many as touched him were delivered.She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, and at once her flow of blood stood still.THE THREAD
And Jesus said, Someone touched me, for I perceive power going out of me.Luke uses the same Greek word, δύναμις (dynamis), for the power that goes out of Jesus. The verse also repeats the touch: contact marks the point where outward-moving power is received and healing occurs.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us