What Does Luke 6:21 Mean?
Flourishing are the hungering now, for you will be filled. Flourishing are the weeping now, for you will laugh.
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
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.THE KEY
Flourishing is spoken over you while hunger and grief still press, so lack is not the measure of your whole life.
THE MEANING
You are flourishing even while hunger or grief is present; the ache is real, but it does not define the whole of what is coming to you. You will be satisfied, and your tears will give way to laughter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that you can flourish only after your needs are met and your grief has ended.
THE ROOT
χορτασθήσεσθε
chortasthēsesthe
GROWS FROM
χορτ-
chort-
The word-family grows from χόρτος (chortos), grass or fodder; χορτάζω (chortazō) means to feed or satisfy.
“filled” in this verse is chortasthēsesthe. The promise is more concrete than an abstract sense of completion: the hungry are fed until satisfied. The verse holds hunger and filling together as bodily realities, with nourishment answering what is missing now.
ALSO GROWS
chortos: Grass or fodder.
χόρτος
It preserves the feeding image inside the promise of being filled.
chortazō: To feed or satisfy.
χορτάζω
This is the verb behind “ye shall be filled”: the promise is nourishment that satisfies.
μακάριοι
makarioi
GROWS FROM
μακαρ-
makar-
The word-family carries the sense of fortunate, flourishing, or blessed.
The adjective is spoken over people who are hungry and weeping, so flourishing cannot mean that life already feels easy. The word names a condition that can coexist with present need, while the verse promises that need does not remain unanswered.
ALSO GROWS
makarizō: To call or count someone blessed.
μακαρίζω
It shows that the word-family can name a person as flourishing, as this verse does.
makarismos: Blessedness or the state of being called blessed.
μακαρισμός
It carries the same description of flourishing beyond a momentary feeling of happiness.
THE PATTERN
Scripture speaks of flourishing amid present need while holding open a coming answer of nourishment and joy.
For he sates the thirsting living soul, and fills the hungry living soul with goodness.Those who sow in tears reap in a ringing cry.They do not hunger any longer, nor thirst any longer; nor does the sun fall upon them, nor any burning heat. For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shepherds them, and guides them along the way to springs of living waters, and God wipes away every tear from their eyes.THE THREAD
Flourishing are those who hunger and thirst for alignment, for they are filled.Matthew uses the same Greek word-family as Luke for “flourishing” and “be filled,” so the connection rests in the shared wording as well as the theme. Matthew adds thirst for righteousness, alignment, showing that the image of being fed reaches beyond food to the longing for life set right.
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