What Does Luke 7:19 Mean?
And John, calling to himself two of his disciples, sent them to Jesus, saying, Are you the one who is coming, or do we wait for another?
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 John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come? or look we for another?THE KEY
The question itself is sent: John’s uncertainty travels to Jesus through the same Greek word family that gives us “apostle,” a person sent.
THE MEANING
The verse gives your unanswered question a destination: it can be carried toward the one you are trying to recognize. It lets you name both possibilities, the one who comes, or another, without pretending the answer is already clear. Recognition begins with the question brought into the open, before its answer arrives.
THE ROOT
ἀπέστειλεν
apesteilen
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
apostellō
to send forth, dispatch
This word family also names a messenger who is sent: ἀπόστολος (apostolos), “messenger, one sent.” John’s words travel through dispatched disciples, so the act of asking is itself movement toward Jesus.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: messenger; one sent
ἀπόστολος
The disciples carry John’s question as messengers sent to Jesus.
apostolē: sending; commission
ἀποστολή
This noun names the act or commission of sending, linking John’s question to a larger movement of messages carried onward.
THE PATTERN
The message advances through people sent to carry it onward.
Look, I am sending my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Look, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.A man came, sent from God, and his name was John.Then Jesus said to them again, Wholeness be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.THE THREAD
A man came, sent from God, and his name was John.Luke’s “sent” and John’s “sent” are forms of the same verb, apostellō. The root that carries John’s question to Jesus also describes John as sent from God, linking the one who asks with the one who prepares the way.
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