What Does Luke 9:7 Mean?
Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him, and he had no way through, because some were saying that John had risen from the dead.
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
Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by him: and he was perplexed, because that it was said of some, that John was risen from the dead;THE KEY
Herod’s perplexity begins when the report of John’s rising makes a supposedly finished death part of the present again.
THE MEANING
You can hear the same events and receive explanations that do not fit together. Here, the report that John has risen leaves Herod unable to settle what the works mean. The verse lets that perplexity remain open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse unsettles the belief that death makes a person’s story finished: John’s reported rising brings his name into the present question again.
THE ROOT
διηπόρει
diēporei
GROWS FROM
πόρος
poros
A passage or way through; also a means or resource.
“had no way through” in this verse is diēporei. The Greek verb pictures more than confusion: Herod has no clear passage from what he hears to a settled answer. The same word-family can describe either a way forward or an impasse, a contrast English leaves hidden.
ALSO GROWS
aporia: Perplexity; an impasse or lack of a way forward.
ἀπορία
This branch names the experience of having no visible path through conflicting reports.
euporeō: To have means; to be able to provide.
εὐπορέω
The same πόρος word-family can describe having a way or resources, exposing the contrast with Herod’s inability to find a way through what he hears.
ἠγέρθη
ēgerthē
GROWS FROM
ἐγείρω
egeirō
To wake, rouse, or raise.
The verb translated “risen” also means to wake or rouse someone; resurrection is expressed as being raised into wakefulness. Here it remains a report, yet its wording gives the rumor a force Herod cannot simply file under the past.
ALSO GROWS
egeire: Wake up; rise.
ἔγειρε
This command uses the same verb for waking or rising, making the link between awakening and being raised explicit.
egersis: A rising; resurrection.
ἔγερσις
This noun from the same word-family names the rising that the report attributes to John.
THE PATTERN
Death does not always close the story; Scripture repeatedly depicts the dead being raised into life again.
And the LORD heard and responded to the voice of Elijah, and the living soul of the child returned into him, and he lived.But Peter cast them all outside, and set his knees down, and prayed. And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, stand up. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.Jesus said to her, I am the rising, and the life. Whoever leans their weight into me, even if they die, will live.THE THREAD
Saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be set aside by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be slain, and be raised on the third day.In 9:7, some say John has been raised; here Jesus says he himself will be raised after suffering and death. The same Greek verb, ἐγείρω (egeirō), links the confused report to what Jesus says will happen.
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