What Does Luke 6:36 Mean?
Become therefore compassionate, as your Father is compassionate.
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
Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.THE KEY
The compassion you see in your Father is the very pattern the verse names for your life.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you now: become compassionate in the likeness of your Father, who is compassionate toward you. The Greek word carries the sense of tender pity toward another’s distress, making mercy a felt response rather than a distant idea.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that compassion is absent from God’s nature: the verse names the Father as compassionate.
THE ROOT
οἰκτίρμονες
oiktirmones
GROWS FROM
οἰκτιρ-
oiktir-
Compassion, pity, tender concern for another’s distress.
“compassionate” in this verse is oiktirmones. The same Greek word family names both the reader’s compassion and the Father’s: the verse places them in one shared pattern. English can make “merciful” sound like a decision made at a distance, while this word carries the nearness of tender pity.
ALSO GROWS
oiktirmos: Compassion or tender concern.
οἰκτιρμός
This noun uses the same word family for compassion, showing that the quality named here also appears as a shared, enduring disposition.
oikteirō: To respond to someone with compassion.
οἰκτείρω
The verb makes the root active: compassion is not only a quality but a response to another’s distress.
THE PATTERN
Compassion in human relationships takes its pattern from the compassion of God.
As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those in awe of him.Flourishing are the givers of faithful love, for they are shown faithful love.Look, we count them flourishing who remain under it. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the LORD, for the LORD is very tender in his inward parts, and moved to groan.THE THREAD
Look, we count them flourishing who remain under it. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the end of the LORD, for the LORD is very tender in his inward parts, and moved to groan.The Greek word translated “merciful” in Luke appears again in James as “tender mercy.” The same word family describes the compassion of the Father here and the Lord there.
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