What Does Luke 9:15 Mean?
And they did so, and had them all recline.
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 they did so, and made them all sit down.THE KEY
The crowd is arranged as a table before the bread is ever placed in its hands.
THE MEANING
You are seeing the people gathered into a shared place of receiving before food arrives. The verse gives the meal’s posture before the meal itself.
THE ROOT
κατέκλιναν
katéklinan
GROWS FROM
κλιν
klin
To bend or incline; in this verb, to make someone recline, especially at a meal.
“recline” in this verse is katéklinan. The Greek verb points to reclining at a table, so the crowd is not merely stopped in place: they are gathered into the posture of a shared meal. English “sit down” keeps the action but hides that table-shaped sense.
ALSO GROWS
klínē: Bed or couch.
κλίνη
This noun shares the κλιν stem and makes the posture of reclining tangible: the people are settled, not left standing in a scattered crowd.
anaklínō: Recline or make someone recline.
ἀνακλίνω
This related verb also describes taking a reclining place for a meal, echoing how the crowd is positioned before the food is distributed.
THE PATTERN
Provision takes shape as food is placed before a gathered people and shared among them.
And his attendant said, How shall I place this before a hundred men? He said again, Give to the people, that they may eat. For thus says the LORD, They shall eat, and some shall remain.And he commanded the crowds to recline upon the grass, and he took the five loaves and the two fish, lifted his eyes to the heavens, blessed them, broke the loaves, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the crowds.And they, holding fast day by day with one passion in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, took their food with gladness and singleness of heart.THE THREAD
When you are called by anyone to a wedding, do not recline in the first place, lest someone more honored than you has been called by him.“Sit down” here and in Luke 9:15 translates forms of κατακλίνω, the same verb for reclining at a meal. Luke 14 places that posture within a banquet’s seating order; Luke 9 sets the whole crowd into it before the food is shared.
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