What Does Luke 8:39 Mean?
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.
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
Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.THE KEY
The verse calls it what God has done, then what Jesus has done, the same verb names both.
THE MEANING
Your ordinary life is not outside the reach of God’s action; it is where its effects can become visible. What the command names as God’s doing, the man’s account names as Jesus’ doing, and that account moves through the city.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that witness requires leaving ordinary life behind: the first instruction is to return to one’s own house.
THE ROOT
πεποίηκεν
pepoiēken
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
poieō
to do, make, or bring about
The command’s “God hath done” and the man’s “Jesus had done” are forms of the same Greek verb. The repeated root places God’s action and Jesus’ action side by side in the man’s own testimony.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: a thing made; workmanship
ποίημα
This branch names what an act brings about, linking the man’s changed life to what has been done for him.
poiētēs: a maker; a doer
ποιητής
This branch names the one who acts, sharpening the verse’s focus on who the man says has acted for him.
THE PATTERN
What God does becomes witness when the person touched by it tells what has happened.
Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.He answered, Whether he misses the mark or not, I do not know. One thing I know, that I was blind, and now I see.For we cannot keep from speaking what we have perceived and heard.THE THREAD
Come and hear, all you who stand in awe of God, and I will recount what he has done for my living soul.The psalmist declares what God has done for their life, echoing the man’s testimony in Luke. In the Septuagint, the Greek verb behind “hath done” is ποιέω (poieō, “to do or make”), the same verb Luke repeats for God’s action and Jesus’.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us