What Does Luke 6:38 Mean?
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and spilling over, they will give into your lap. For with the same measure you measure out, it will be measured back to you.
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, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.THE KEY
The same verb carries giving in both directions, so what you release returns through another giver in an overflowing measure.
THE MEANING
As you give, you encounter an answering generosity, described as a measure packed, settled, and overflowing. In the surrounding words, this pattern includes mercy and release from judgment, so the measure concerns how you treat another person as well as what you hand over. Other people are the hands through which the return arrives in this verse.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that whatever you give away is simply lost cannot account for the return pictured here: giving moves in a circle and comes back in abundance.
THE ROOT
μέτρον
metron
GROWS FROM
μετρ-
metr-
A measure or standard by which quantity is determined.
“measure out” in this verse is metron. The noun measure and the verbs mete and measured share one Greek word family, so the verse repeats a single measuring idea from both sides. The overflowing image presents that same measure returning in an abundant form.
ALSO GROWS
metreō: To measure.
μετρέω
This verb is behind the KJV forms mete and measured, linking the act you extend with the measure that comes back.
ametros: Without measure; immeasurable.
ἄμετρος
Its opposite makes the verse’s repeated measure stand out: the return is abundant, yet still pictured through the measure given.
δίδοτε
didote
GROWS FROM
δο-/δω- (do-/dō-)
To give or bestow.
“give / be given” in this verse is didote. The active and passive forms are one verb, with the giver and recipient changing places. The grammar joins the outward act of giving to the return that follows.
ALSO GROWS
dosis: A giving; a gift.
δόσις
This noun preserves the giving action as a thing shared or received, echoing the verse’s movement from giving to receiving.
dōrēma: A gift; something bestowed.
δώρημα
This branch names what is given and highlights the human hands through which the verse pictures the return arriving.
THE PATTERN
What is generously released returns in a measure shaped by the generosity that went out.
The living soul of blessing is made fat, and the one who waters is himself watered.But this I say, the one who sows in holding back reaps in holding back, and the one who sows in blessings reaps in blessings.THE THREAD
And he said to them, Watch what you hear. By whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you, and more will be added to you who hear.Mark repeats the same Greek measure and measuring word family, making the measuring standard the hinge between what is extended and what returns. That shared root opens Luke’s image as a pattern of reception shaped by the measure brought to others.
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