What Does Luke 6:30 Mean?
Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours, do not demand it back.
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
Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.THE KEY
The same Greek ask-root names both the request you answer and the demand for return you withhold after loss.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks in two present movements: you give to each person who asks, and you do not demand your goods back from the person who takes them. It holds chosen generosity and real loss in the same frame without making them the same act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that everything leaving your possession must be reclaimed before your hand can remain open.
THE ROOT
ἀπαίτει
apaiteí
GROWS FROM
αἰτέω (aiteō), with ἀπό (apo-)
αἰτέω means to ask or request; the compound ἀπαιτέω means to demand or ask back.
“demand it back” in this verse is apaiteí. The line places two forms of asking together: another asks you for something, and you do not ask it back after it is taken. In Greek, the second verb is a compound of the first, linking the request answered with giving to the demand for return that is withheld.
ALSO GROWS
aiteō: Ask, request
αἰτέω
The word translated “asketh” earlier in this verse comes from this same verb, joining the request received with the demand not made.
aitēma: Request, petition
αἴτημα
This noun from the same word family keeps asking and requesting at the center of the verse’s language.
δίδου
didou
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give, grant, or present.
“Give” in this verse is didou. δίδου is a present imperative form of δίδωμι, expressing giving as an ongoing action. Its word family also includes sharing and imparting, showing giving as something passed outward from one person to another.
ALSO GROWS
metadidōmi: Share, impart
μεταδίδωμι
This related verb makes explicit the sharing dimension of giving to the person who asks.
dosis: Giving, gift
δόσις
The noun preserves giving as an act of transfer, the movement the verse places beside another person’s taking.
THE PATTERN
Openhandedness reaches beyond what is freely requested to what is taken and not reclaimed.
But you shall open your hand wide to him, and you shall surely lend him enough for what he lacks.And if anyone wants to take you to court and take your tunic, let your cloak go to him also.But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Highest, for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil.THE THREAD
And I say to you, Ask, and it is given to you; seek, and you find; knock, and it is opened to you.The Greek verb αἰτέω (aiteō, “ask”) appears in Luke 6:30 for the person asking, and again within the compound meaning “demand back.” Here that same ask meets a promise of giving, making the two verses turn around the same request-and-gift movement.
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