What Does Luke 7:18 Mean?
And John's disciples told him of all these things.
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 the disciples of John shewed him of all these things.THE KEY
What is seen becomes a message carried by learners: John receives the report through the people who have heard and witnessed these things.
THE MEANING
The verse places you in a living chain of witness: what is happening reaches you through people who have heard and seen it. John’s learners carry the whole report to him instead of keeping it to themselves.
THE ROOT
ἀπήγγειλαν
apēngeilan
GROWS FROM
ἀγγέλλω
angellō
To announce or report; to carry a message.
“told” in this verse is apēngeilan. The verb translated “shewed” belongs to the same message-bearing word family as “messenger.” Showing and telling meet here: what Jesus does reaches John through a report his learners carry.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: Messenger
ἄγγελος
The messenger noun shares the same message-bearing stem; John’s disciples carry what they have witnessed.
euangelion: Good news, or good message
εὐαγγέλιον
This word names a good announcement; the verse likewise shows how an account of what has happened travels from person to person.
μαθηταί
mathētai
GROWS FROM
μανθάνω
manthanō
To learn.
The word translated “disciples” names learners. The verse shows learning becoming transmission: those formed by what they have received now carry the report onward.
ALSO GROWS
mathētēs: Learner, disciple
μαθητής
This is the singular form behind “disciples,” keeping the emphasis on people who learn.
mathēteuō: To make or become a learner, to disciple
μαθητεύω
The same learning family can describe the forming of learners, while this verse shows learners passing on what they have heard.
THE PATTERN
Witness becomes shared understanding when what is seen and heard is carried to others.
We will not hide them from their children, recounting to the generation that follows the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonders that he has done.How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who makes wholeness heard, who brings good news of good, who makes deliverance heard, who says to Zion, Your God governs.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
Jesus answered and said to them, Go, and tell John what you have seen and heard, that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are roused, and the good news is brought to the emptied.The Greek reporting verb from the same message-bearing family appears again when Jesus tells the messengers to report to John what they have seen and heard. The first report arrives; the next is grounded in witnessed change.
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