What Does Luke 8:34 Mean?
When those who tended them saw what had happened, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the fields.
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
When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country.THE KEY
Their flight does not bury what they see; it turns the scene into a public report.
THE MEANING
A shocking event enters public life: the herdsmen see what has happened, flee, and carry their account into the city and countryside. Their departure does not end their witness; the story travels with them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Fear always silences a witness. Here, the witnesses flee and still carry what they saw into public speech.
THE ROOT
ἀπήγγειλαν
apēngeilan
GROWS FROM
ἀγγέλλω (angellō), the ἀγγελ- (angel-) message family
announce, report, carry a message
The verb translated “told” belongs to the same message family as ἄγγελος (angelos, messenger) and εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion, good news). The herdsmen become messengers, though their announcement is disturbing; the shared root names the act of carrying a message, not whether it is good news.
ALSO GROWS
angelos: Messenger
ἄγγελος
The herdsmen carry news from the scene into the city and countryside, acting as messengers.
euangelion: Good news, gospel
εὐαγγέλιον
This branch shares the announcement family, while the verse shows that a report can carry alarming news.
ἔφυγον
ephy
GROWS FROM
φεύγω (pheugō), φευγ-
flee, escape
“fled” in this verse is ephy. The Greek verb names flight, not simply leaving. The public account begins with witnesses moving away from the scene, and their movement carries the report outward.
ALSO GROWS
phygē: Flight, escape
φυγή
This noun names the same kind of urgent departure the herdsmen make.
katapheugō: Flee to safety, take refuge
καταφεύγω
The same root can describe movement away from danger toward refuge, showing that flight is purposeful movement.
THE PATTERN
What is seen and heard crosses from private witness into public speech.
Then they said to one another, We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, and we keep silent. If we wait until the morning light, crookedness will find us. So now come, and let us go and tell the king's house.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
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 herdsmen carry an alarming scene into public speech; then the restored man carries the scale of his deliverance through the whole city. The same event reaches the city through two witnesses, but his account centers what Jesus has done for him.
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