What Does Luke 7:38 Mean?
And standing at his feet behind him, weeping, she began to wet his feet with tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and rubbed them with the ointment.
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 stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.THE KEY
Her kiss is not merely a gesture: its Greek word belongs to the family of affection, making love visible as touch.
THE MEANING
Sorrow and tenderness occupy the same moment. Her tears wet Jesus’ feet; her hair wipes them, her kisses continue, and the ointment completes the touch. Her grief is not hidden before she draws near; it is already part of what she brings.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that grief must be concealed before you can come near: here, the tears are present in the very act of approaching.
THE ROOT
κατεφίλει
katephilei
GROWS FROM
φιλε-
phile-
The Greek word-family φιλέω (phileō) means to love, cherish, or show affection.
“kissed” in this verse is katephilei. The Greek keeps the family of affection audible inside the act of kissing: love and a kiss are branches of the same word-family. The form here pictures her kissing him repeatedly, making touch an ongoing expression rather than a single token gesture.
ALSO GROWS
phileō: to love, cherish, or show affection
φιλέω
This verb names affection itself, showing how the kiss expresses more than a formal greeting.
philēma: a kiss
φίλημα
This noun gives the same word-family a physical form: affection expressed through a kiss.
philos: friend, beloved
φίλος
This related word names someone held in affection, linking the act of kissing with the bond behind it.
THE PATTERN
What is inwardly carried becomes visible through what is poured out, touched, or held.
You count my wanderings; you set my tears in your skin bottle. Are they not in your count?And as he was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, reclining at table, there came a woman with an alabaster jar of genuine nard oil, very costly, and she shattered the jar and poured it down over his head.Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel he was girded with.THE THREAD
You gave me no kiss, but this woman, since I came in, has not left off kissing my feet.Luke 7:45 repeats the same Greek verb, καταφιλέω (kataphileō), for the kiss Jesus says was absent and the woman’s kiss that has not stopped. The shared word makes welcome tangible: here it is a touch that continues.
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