Luke 14
He heals a man with dropsy on the Sabbath, then speaks of places at table. The great banquet follows, and the counting of the cost of following.
Watching him closely (παρατηρέω, paratēreō) is watching from the side, to catch someone out.
Dropsical (ὑδρωπικός, hydrōpikos) is used once in the four Gospels — a medical word, which fits a writer held to be a physician.
Answering — he answers a question no one asked aloud.
They kept silent — the same silence as at Mark 3:4.
A son or an ox — the manuscripts differ, and some read “a donkey or an ox”. This edition follows its base text, odd pair and all.
Why this rendering
Luke.14.5 Observation
Syntactic observation
The Sabbath dispute comes three times in the same shape, and what falls in differs each time. Matthew 12:11 has πρόβατον ἕν … εἰς βόθυνον, one sheep into a pit; Luke 13:15 τὸν βοῦν … ἢ τὸν ὄνον ἀπὸ τῆς φάτνης, the ox or the donkey from the manger — not fallen but tied; and here 14:5 υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς εἰς φρέαρ, a son or an ox into a well. The base text reads υἱός and marks no variant on it. So this is the only place in the four Gospels where a person is among what is pulled out on the Sabbath. φρέαρ, a well, stands three times: this one in Luke and John 4:11 and 4:12 — the well the Samaritan woman says is deep. ἀνασπάω, to draw up, is a hapax in the four Gospels. And just before this scene stands ὑδρωπικός, dropsical (14:2), also a hapax in the four Gospels — an illness of water gathering in the body, and immediately after that man is healed comes a saying about drawing up what has fallen into water. The text does not state the link. νομικός, lawyer, occurs once in Matthew and six times in Luke, so even the opponents here are named with Luke's word.
Rendering options · 2
Basis The base text reads υἱός and marks no variant, and this edition follows its base text (DECISIONS C1). Reading son also makes this the only one of the three Sabbath disputes in which a person is included, which is the datum of the verse.
Basis Donkey and ox is a natural pair and matches the ox and donkey of 13:15; and the reading is carried by another base-text family (the Textus Receptus side), so versions following that family render it so.
Rejected This edition's base text does not read it and marks no variant there. Setting the versions side by side shows the split is not a matter of style but of base text: KJV, ASV, YLT and LSV, which follow the Textus Receptus family, read donkey; the rest, following the critical text, read son. So choosing donkey here would not be choosing a word but changing the base text. And that donkey or ox is the smoother pair is itself a reason it may be the later reading — a judgement not made here; what is recorded is only what the base text reads.
Not able to answer back — the silence of verse 4 becomes an inability.
Chief couches renders πρωτοκλισίαι (prōtoklisiai) — the first places at table.
More honoured than you — the risk is being moved down.
With shame — the Greek says “with shame”, and the shame is public.
Friend renders φίλος (philos), not the cooler word Matthew 22:12 uses.
Exalts … humbled — both verbs are passive, and the doer is not named. The line returns at 18:14.
Lunch or a dinner — two different meals: ἄριστον (ariston), the earlier one, and δεῖπνον (deipnon), the later. This edition keeps them apart; English versions often collapse both into “dinner”.
Banquet (δοχή, dochē) — the third meal-word in two verses, used in the four Gospels only in this book.
Why this rendering
Luke.14.13 Observation
Syntactic observation
The list of four comes twice in one chapter and the order differs. v.13 has πτωχούς, ἀναπείρους, χωλούς, τυφλούς — poor, crippled, lame, blind; v.21 has πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀναπείρους καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ χωλούς — poor, crippled, blind, lame, the last two changing places. But the base text marks a variant on exactly those two words at v.21, so it is recorded that the reordering is a place where the edition's judgement enters. ἀνάπηρος, crippled, stands twice in the four Gospels and both are in this chapter (14:13, 14:21). δοχή, a banquet, also twice — Luke 5:29, the great banquet Levi made, and here; so the two places in this book where a banquet is thrown are held by one word. The parallel, Matthew 22:1-14, parts widely: Matthew has a βασιλεύς, a king, making a wedding for his son, sending slaves twice, the invited seizing the slaves, insulting and killing them, and the king burning their city. Luke has ἄνθρωπός τις, a certain man, making a δεῖπνον μέγα, a great supper, sending once, with no violence. Who is brought in differs too: Matthew 22:10 gathers πονηρούς τε καὶ ἀγαθούς, bad and good alike; Luke names the four. Matthew 22:5 gives two brief excuses, to his own field and to his business; Luke gives three, each with its own speech — bought a field, bought five yoke of oxen, married a wife. v.12 sets ἄριστον, the midday meal, beside δεῖπνον, the evening one; ἄριστον stands three times in the four Gospels (Matt 22:4, Luke 11:38, Luke 14:12).
Rendering options · 2
Basis That is how the base text reads. Matching the orders would be to correct the base text; rendering the words differently would hide that the two lists are the same four. That the reading is marked is recorded under variants so the reader can weigh it.
Basis The same four come twice, and a differing order may read as a different list. But of the versions examined, YLT and LSV read the same order in both not for readability but because their base text reads so — the split here is a matter of manuscripts, not of style.
Rejected That they come differently is the datum. Matching it hides what the base text reads, and since a variant is marked at exactly that place the text is left untouched all the more — for a translator to decide again over a place the editor has already decided is two layers of handling.
Lost in translation
v.12 sets the two meals of the day side by side — ἄριστον the earlier, δεῖπνον the later. Every locale does have a fixed pair, and this edition holds one rendering per word across the four Gospels (lunch and supper), so the fact of the pairing carries. What does not carry is the clock: the Greek pair names the meals of an ancient day, and every rendering hands the reader the hours of a modern one. English “dinner” was once the midday word and is now the evening word in most places, so this edition uses it for neither. And because the king of Mt 22:4 calls a wedding feast an ἄριστον, the rendering there comes out as “I have prepared my lunch,” which reads oddly — the oddity is the base text's word choice, not the translation's.
At the resurrection of the righteous — the repayment is put off past this life.
Blessed is whoever will eat bread — the guest's line is what the parable answers.
A great supper — the later meal-word of verse 12. This telling differs from Matthew 22:2: there a king makes a wedding for his son.
His slave — one slave here; Matthew 22:3 sends slaves, plural.
Have me excused renders a Greek idiom, “have me as excused”.
Five yoke of oxen — the second excuse is also a purchase.
I have married a wife — the third excuse asks no pardon.
Streets and lanes — the second sending is inside the city.
There is still room — the slave reports the emptiness, and a third sending follows.
Compel (ἀναγκάζω, anankazō) is a strong verb — the same as Mark 6:45.
None of those men — the Greek “you” here is plural, so the last line may be spoken past the slave to the hearers.
Turning — the hard words that follow are said to a crowd, not to the twelve.
Hate (μισέω, miseō) — this book says hate; Matthew 10:37 says “loves more than me”. This edition does not soften it. His own life is ψυχή (psychē).
Why this rendering
Luke.14.26 Observation
Syntactic observation
The parallel is Matthew 10:37, and the verb is its opposite. Matthew has ὁ φιλῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμέ, the one loving father or mother more than me; Luke has οὐ μισεῖ τὸν πατέρα, does not hate his father. Matthew speaks by comparison (ὑπέρ); Luke speaks with one word and no comparison. The list differs too: Matthew has four — father, mother, son, daughter; Luke seven — father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and his own ψυχή. Wife and sisters are not in Matthew. The close differs as well: Matthew οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος, is not worthy of me; Luke οὐ δύναται εἶναί μου μαθητής, cannot be my disciple — a close that comes three times in this chapter (26, 27, 33). The verb in the next verse parts too: of the cross, Matthew 10:38 has λαμβάνει, takes; Luke 9:23 has ἀράτω, let him take up, with καθ’ ἡμέραν, daily; and here 14:27 has βαστάζει, bears. So Luke uses two verbs within one book. And the only two places in the four Gospels where βαστάζω stands with σταυρός are Luke 14:27 and John 19:17 — where Jesus actually carries his own cross out.
Rendering options · 2
Basis This verb is exactly where the two books part. Luke does not use the comparative ὑπέρ, and that he could have and did not is the datum when the two are set side by side. Softening it removes that.
Basis In Semitic idiom hate can carry comparison, and Matthew 10:37 writes the same saying that way. Read literally it catches the reader.
Rejected The reading may well be right — but it is what Matthew did, not what Luke did. Putting Matthew's interpretation into Luke's text makes it impossible to set the two side by side, and setting them side by side is what this edition is for. The catch is left standing and the ground is recorded here. Of the versions examined only the two sense-for-sense ones take this road.
Lost in translation
The Greek lists six persons and then, with ἔτι τε καί, adds his own ψυχή on top. English can carry the adding, but since ψυχή is fixed as life throughout, the sentence does not show that it is the same word the rich man addressed at 12:19.
λαμβάνω (Matt 10:38), αἴρω (Luke 9:23, Matt 16:24) and βαστάζω (Luke 14:27, John 19:17) stand apart. English separates all three — take, take up, carry — so both the link to John 19:17 and the split from Luke 9:23 stand in the text at once. It is one of the few places in this saying where nothing has to be given up.
His own cross — the beam a condemned man carried.
Count up the cost — this parable and the next stand only in this book.
Why this rendering
Luke.14.28 Observation
Syntactic observation
The man building a tower and the king going to war come one after the other, and both are Luke's alone. They are built out of words that occur nowhere else in the four Gospels: ψηφίζω, to count up; ἀπαρτισμός, completion; δαπάνη, cost — each a hapax in the four Gospels, and all three in v.28. πρεσβεία, an embassy, stands twice, both in Luke — 14:32 and 19:14, where they send an embassy saying we do not want this man to reign over us. So of the two places an embassy goes in this book, one goes to ask for peace and one to prevent a reign. συμβάλλω, to engage, is also twice and both Luke, the other being 2:19 — the verb for Mary keeping these things and turning them over in her heart. One word does the work of weighing within oneself and of a king joining battle. πύργος, tower, stands four times: Matt 21:33 and Mark 12:1 are the tower of a vineyard, and Luke's two are 13:4, the tower in Siloam that fell and killed eighteen, and this one — a tower that fell one chapter earlier becomes a tower left unfinished here. The text does not state the link. The conclusion of both parables is v.33, which repeats for the third time the close of vv.26 and 27 — οὐ δύναται εἶναί μου μαθητής.
Rendering options · 2
Basis One word carries both weighing within and joining battle, and no Korean or English word does both; forcing one rendering makes one of the two unreadable. Splitting and recording it is better — the word is lost but the fact is kept.
Basis This edition's rule is one Greek word to one rendering, so it keeps faith with the rule.
Rejected The rule is for where the sense carries over. Here the two senses do not carry over and do not do so in the Greek either — they are different uses of one verb. Forcing one rendering makes 2:19 read as Mary set these things against each other in her heart, which does not read at all. It is a place where keeping the rule would lose the text.
Lost in translation
2:19 and 14:31 are the same verb in Greek, and this edition has chosen to split them. So that the two places share a word does not cross over in the rendering at all and survives only in this record — one of the few places where the edition sets its rule aside.
Mock (ἐμπαίζω, empaizō) is the word used of the soldiers at 22:63.
This man began to build — the mockery is quoted, which makes it sharper.
Ten thousand … twenty thousand — the Greek says “myriads”.
Asks the terms for peace — the Greek says “asks the things toward peace”.
Say farewell (ἀποτάσσομαι, apotassomai) — the verb of 9:61, here of possessions.
Becomes foolish renders μωραίνω (mōrainō) — salt that loses its taste is called foolish, and English cannot keep the join without spelling it out.
Why this rendering
Luke.14.34 Observation
Syntactic observation
The saying about salt stands in all three books, and Luke's one verse carries Matthew's word and Mark's word together. Matthew 5:13 has ἐὰν τὸ ἅλας μωρανθῇ, ἐν τίνι ἁλισθήσεται — if the salt becomes foolish, with what will it be salted; Mark 9:50 has καλὸν τὸ ἅλας· ἐὰν τὸ ἅλας ἄναλον γένηται, ἐν τίνι αὐτὸ ἀρτύσετε — salt is good; if the salt becomes saltless, with what will you season it. Luke 14:34 opens with Καλὸν οὖν τὸ ἅλας, Mark's opening; uses μωρανθῇ, Matthew's verb; and closes with ἀρτυθήσεται, Mark's verb. The counts hold it up: μωραίνω occurs twice in the four Gospels, Matt 5:13 and Luke 14:34, and never in Mark; ἀρτύω twice, Mark 9:50 and Luke 14:34, and never in Matthew; ἁλίζω at Matt 5:13 and Mark 9:49 and never in Luke; ἄναλος only at Mark 9:50. What follows differs three ways as well — Matthew, thrown out and trampled by people; Mark, have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another; Luke, οὔτε εἰς γῆν οὔτε εἰς κοπρίαν, fit neither for soil nor for the dunghill. And that κοπρία stands once in the four Gospels and shares its root with the κόπρια of 13:8, one chapter earlier — the manure the vinedresser said he would put on the fig tree. Each word is a hapax in the four Gospels and both are Luke's.
Rendering options · 2
Basis The datum in this verse is not its sense but where its words come from. Rendering the two verbs in one key — lose its taste, season it — hides that one belongs only to Matthew and the other only to Mark. The dunghill is the same: splitting it from the root at 13:8 loses a link that runs across two chapters. No version among the fourteen examined keeps the root, but this edition already took that road at Matt 5:13 and does not change direction here.
Basis The three books carry one saying, so a reader sees the parallel more easily; and μωραίνω rendered literally as become foolish does not sit on salt.
Rejected Unifying erases that this verse holds words from two books at once. That μωραίνω does not sit on salt is true of the Greek too — Matthew chose it and Luke took it over, and that is the datum. And rendering by made salty leans toward ἁλίζω, which Luke does not use, erasing the ἀρτύω, to season, that he does.
Lost in translation
μωραίνω comes from μωρός, foolish, so in Greek the salt becomes foolish. This edition already renders Matt 5:13 as the salt becomes foolish and keeps it here, so the root does cross over. Of the twenty-six comparison versions carried for this chapter, two do the same — Luther 1912 with dumm wird and the Church Slavonic 1900 with ѡбꙋѧетъ (from буй, foolish). Kaeyŏk Hangŭl — in our data but not on the page — has lost its taste, and the English versions all go to tasteless, lost its savour, loses its flavor. The Slavonic weighs more: at Mark 9:50, where the Greek is ἄναλον, it writes не слана — so it keeps the foolish word for μωραίνω alone. What is given up here is therefore not the word but the ease of reading, and what is kept in exchange is that Matt 5:13 and Luke 14:34 are one word.
Dung-heap (κοπρία, kopria) — this edition keeps it apart from its plural at 13:8. They throw it out — the Greek plural has no named subject.