What Does Luke 7:44 Mean?
And he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head.
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 he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.THE KEY
The Greek verb translated “washed” also describes rain: the water Simon withholds arrives as tears from the woman he fails to see.
THE MEANING
Jesus turns your attention to the woman and asks whether you see her. The scene places withheld water beside the care she gives: her tears wet Jesus’ feet, and her hair wipes them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being the host or standing close to Jesus does not by itself mean you truly see the person before you.
THE ROOT
ἔβρεξεν
ebrexen
GROWS FROM
βρεχ-
To wet or moisten; the same verb also means to rain.
“wet” in this verse is ebrexen. The verb carries both wetting and rain within its range. Its rain-sense lets the woman’s tears register as water in the scene itself, a human downpour where none was offered.
ALSO GROWS
brochē: Rain, a shower.
βροχή
This related word makes the root’s rain-sense visible: her tears wet Jesus’ feet with the same kind of water the root names as rain.
brechei: It rains.
βρέχει
Matthew 5:45 uses this form for rain; the shared verb links the rain that falls from heaven with the tears falling on Jesus’ feet.
THE PATTERN
Welcome becomes visible through concrete care for another’s body.
Let a little water be taken, please, and wash your feet, and lean yourselves under the tree.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
So that you may become children of your Father in the heavens, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the aligned and on the crooked.The Greek word translated “rain” here comes from the same root as the word translated “washed” in Luke. The connection opens the woman’s tears as rain-like water, supplying what Simon’s house has withheld.
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