What Does Luke 6:39 Mean?
And he spoke a parable to them. Can the blind lead the blind along the way? Will they not both fall into the pit?
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 he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?THE KEY
The Greek verb for “lead” carries a road inside it: blindness turns guidance into a shared journey toward a pit.
THE MEANING
A guide’s lack of perception can become the follower’s route too; trust does not give either person sight. The danger is shared: both are carried toward the same fall.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that confidence or authority can make a guide’s unseen direction safe for the person following.
THE ROOT
ὁδηγεῖν
hodēgein
GROWS FROM
ὁδός + ἡγέομαι (hodós + hēgéomai)
Way + lead: to guide someone along a road.
“lead along the way” in this verse is hodēgein. The Greek word makes guidance more than offering an idea: it means leading someone along a way. Here, the guide cannot see the route, yet both people travel it and reach the same pit.
ALSO GROWS
hodós: way, road
ὁδός
The way is built into the word for guiding; the guide’s blindness concerns the path itself.
hodēgós: guide
ὁδηγός
This related word names the person who leads another along a way, joining the guide and the route in one image.
τυφλός
typhlos
GROWS FROM
τυφ-
typh-
Blind or obscured; the word is traditionally associated with smoke and dimmed sight.
“blind” in this verse is typhlos. The image reaches beyond eyes that cannot see: it can also evoke perception obscured. In the verse, that obscurity belongs to the guide and to the follower’s shared destination.
ALSO GROWS
typhlóō: to blind, make unable to see
τυφλόω
The related verb shows blindness as perception being obstructed, which fits a guide unable to discern the route.
typhos: smoke, vapor
τύφος
The traditional association with smoke gives the word an image of sight clouded over, deepening the verse’s picture of guidance without clear perception.
THE PATTERN
When those who cannot perceive the way lead others, their followers share the consequences of that blindness.
For the straighteners of this people make them wander, and those led by them are swallowed up.Let them go. They are blind guides of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see might see, and that those who see might become blind.THE THREAD
And Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see might see, and that those who see might become blind.John uses the same Greek word for “blind,” τυφλός (typhlos), and exposes how apparent sight can conceal a failure to perceive. Luke shows what happens when that failure becomes a guide’s direction: the follower shares the destination.
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