What Does Luke 7:17 Mean?
And this word about him went out through all Judea and through all the surrounding country.
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 this rumour of him went forth throughout all Judæa, and throughout all the region round about.THE KEY
The word about him carries what happened beyond the place where it happened.
THE MEANING
The word about him moves outward, turning one witnessed moment into shared awareness. What happens in one place becomes something people across a region carry and repeat.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse dissolves the belief that what happens in one place stays confined to its witnesses; here, the word carries it through an entire region.
THE ROOT
λόγος
logos
GROWS FROM
λεγ- / λογ- (leg- / log-)
to say, tell, recount; a word or account
The KJV’s “rumour” is λόγος (logos): a word, account, or report, not necessarily false gossip. The word family connects telling with accounting, so the verse shows the word about him as an account people can carry beyond where it began.
ALSO GROWS
legō: say, tell, speak
λέγω
This verb reveals the spoken act within logos: what happened becomes something told.
logizomai: reckon, consider, account
λογίζομαι
This related form shows the family’s sense of giving an account, illuminating how the word makes an event something others can take in and consider.
THE PATTERN
A witnessed act becomes a word that travels beyond the place where it happens.
Their measuring cord goes out through all the earth, and their words to the edge of the world; in them he set a tent for the sun.And straightway his report went out through all the region around Galilee.Return to your own house, and tell how much God has done for you. And he went away and heralded throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.THE THREAD
In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.The same Greek word, λόγος (logos), appears here as “rumour” and in John as “the Word.” In Luke, it is the account about him moving across Judea; John opens the wider horizon of what a word can carry.
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