What Does Luke 6:8 Mean?
But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man whose hand was dried up, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he rose and stood forth.
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
But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.THE KEY
Jesus sees the argument held inside the room and calls the man with the withered hand into its very middle.
THE MEANING
Jesus sees the observers’ inward reasoning and the man’s withered hand. He calls the man into the middle, and the man rises and stands there. Hidden thought and visible need now occupy the same space.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that unspoken reasoning stays hidden is undone here: Jesus knows their thoughts before they voice them.
THE ROOT
διαλογισμούς
dialogismous
GROWS FROM
διάλογ- (dialog-), from διαλογίζομαι (dialogizomai)
Reckoning through; weighing a matter inwardly
“Thoughts” can sound like private ideas, but διαλογισμός (dialogismos) carries the sense of weighing, reasoning, or inner dispute. Jesus knows the argument they are carrying within them, even before they speak.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, count, or account
λογίζομαι
It reveals the calculating quality that can sit beneath what English calls a thought.
dialogizomai: Reason through or debate
διαλογίζομαι
This verb shows the same inward weighing as an active process, rather than a passing idea.
ἔγειρε
egeire
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
Rouse, awaken, or raise
The verb used for “Rise up” can also describe waking someone or raising the dead; its range reaches beyond standing from a seat. The man is called into upright, public presence while his hand is still withered.
ALSO GROWS
egertheis: Having been raised
ἐγερθείς
This form carries the same raising movement into accounts of being raised from the dead.
egersis: Rising or resurrection
ἔγερσις
The related noun shows how the verb’s wider sense includes a rising into life.
ξηράν
xēran
GROWS FROM
ξηρός
xēros
Dry, parched, or withered
“dried up” in this verse is xēran. The word translated “withered” also means dry. Its family names both a dry condition and the process of drying up; Mark’s parallel account uses the related verb for the same hand, then says it is restored whole.
ALSO GROWS
xērainō: Dry up or wither
ξηραίνω
This related verb describes the drying process and appears in Mark’s account of the same hand.
xēra: Dry land or a dry place
ξηρά
The adjective can also describe dry ground, carrying the same basic sense of dryness into another setting.
THE PATTERN
The inner life is already visible to God, even before it becomes speech or action.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. O LORD, you probe me, and you perceive me.Straightway Jesus perceived in his breath that they reasoned this way within themselves, and he said to them, Why do you reason these things in your hearts?And no creation is hidden before him, but all things are naked and bared at the throat to the eyes of him to whom our account belongs.THE THREAD
And when he had looked around at them with swelling anger, pained together over the stoniness of their hearts, he said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and his hand was set back in place, whole as the other.Luke calls the hand ξηρός (xēros, dry or withered); Mark uses the related verb ξηραίνω (xērainō, to dry up) for the same hand. Mark then says it is restored whole, showing the dry condition as something that can change when the hand is brought into view.
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