What Does Luke 6:5 Mean?
And he said to them, The Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.
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 said unto them, That the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.THE KEY
The Son of Man’s authority reaches even into the sacred act of ceasing.
THE MEANING
Your rest, too, sits within the Son of Man’s authority; the verse places Sabbath within his reach. Sabbath is cessation, and even that pause belongs to the domain he governs.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The Sabbath is not a higher authority that the Son of Man must answer to; this verse names him its Lord.
THE ROOT
σαββάτου
sabbatou
GROWS FROM
σαββατ-
The Greek stem for Sabbath, from Hebrew שָׁבַת (shavat, to cease); its basic image is cessation from ordinary work.
The Greek word carries the Hebrew cessation-root inside the name of the Sabbath. Calling the Son of Man its Lord places even this sacred stopping within his authority.
ALSO GROWS
sabbatizō: to keep or observe the Sabbath
σαββατίζω
This verb makes the Sabbath an act of ceasing, not only a name for a day.
sabbatismos: Sabbath rest or observance
σαββατισμός
Hebrews uses this same word-family for rest, revealing the cessation within the Sabbath term.
κύριός
kyrios
GROWS FROM
κυρι-
The Greek word-family of κύριος (kyrios, lord or master) carries the sense of authority and mastery.
Related forms name both the one who holds authority and the act or domain of ruling. Here that authority reaches into sacred time: the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath.
ALSO GROWS
kyrieuō: to rule over or exercise mastery
κυριεύω
This verb expresses active authority, the scope of which the verse extends to the Sabbath.
kyriotēs: lordship or dominion
κυριότης
This noun names the kind of authority the title carries; “also of the sabbath” shows its reach.
THE PATTERN
Sabbath is a God-held cessation whose rest reaches beyond one person to the whole created household.
And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made, and he stopped on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall stop, that your ox and your donkey may settle, and the son of your handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed.He said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.THE THREAD
Therefore a Sabbath settling remains for the people of God.The Greek σαββατισμός (sabbatismos, Sabbath rest) belongs to the same σαββατ- word-family as Luke’s σαββάτου (sabbatou, of the Sabbath). Hebrews preserves the Sabbath word inside its word for rest, joining the Son of Man’s authority over Sabbath to the cessation the word carries.
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