Luke 20:8

Greek (Tischendorf 8th ed.)

English Translation

Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

World English Bible · Public Domain

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ποίᾳ

poîos

G4169

“of what sort”

Interrogative pronoun, Dative, Singular, Feminine

Appears 33× in the Greek New Testament
First appears at Matthew 19:18

Full Thayer's Definition

Origin: from the base of G4226 and G3634

TDNT: None

1. of what sort or nature

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

14: words
13: distinct lemmas
Gospels: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

ποίᾳ of what sort G4169 occurs in 32 verses of the Greek New Testament. Also found in:

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse:

εἶπεν to say G3004 ×2

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Luke 20:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Job 5:12–13 He frustrates the devices of the crafty, So that their hands can't perform their enterprise.
Proverbs 26:4–5 Don't answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him.
Matthew 15:14 Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit."
Matthew 16:4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and there will be no sign given to it, except the sign of the prophet Jonah." He left them, and departed.
Matthew 21:27 They answered Jesus, and said, "We don't know." He also said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
Mark 11:33 They answered Jesus, "We don't know." Jesus said to them, "Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things."
Luke 22:68 and if I ask, you will in no way answer me or let me go.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Commentary

Notes on Luke 20:8 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

8. Neither tell I you] If they were incompetent to decide as to the authority of the Prophet who had saluted Jesus as the Messiah, they were obviously incompetent to decide as to His authority.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And at the season,.... Or "when it the time of fruit", as the Ethiopic version renders it, agreeably to See Gill on Mat 21:34,

he sent a servant to the husbandmen; or servants, as in Mat 21:34; the prophets of the Lord, his messengers, whom he sent to them, to exhort them to bring forth the fruits of righteousness, as follows:

that they should give him of the fruit of the vineyard; that is, that they, bringing forth good fruit in their lives and conversations, whereby it might appear that they were trees of righteousness, and the planting of the Lord; he, or they observing them, might give an account of them to the Lord, to the glory of his name:

but the husbandmen beat him, and sent him away empty; the Jews not only mocked these messengers of the Lord, and despised their words, but misused them, Ch2 36:15 they beat them with their fists, smote them on the cheek, and scourged them with scourges; so that they had no account to give of their fruitfulness in good works, but the contrary; See Gill on Mat 21:35 and See Gill on Mar 12:3.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

5 And they reasoned with themselves, saying, If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why then believed ye him not?

6 But and if we say, Of men; all the people will stone us: for they be persuaded that John was a prophet.

7 And they answered, that they could not tell whence it was.

8 And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.

Ver. 8. Neither tell I you, &c.] God’s servants should be ready with their answer upon sudden assaults, and not to seek such arguments as may stop the mouth of an adversary. When a nimble Jesuit asked, Where was your religion before Luther? answer was presently returned, In the Bible, where your religion never was.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things. Jesus, on hearing their plea of ignorance, now contemptuously declines to answer the Sanhedrists" question in the direct way they desired, but at once proceeds to speak a parable which unmistakably contains the reply.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges

8. οὐδὲ ἐγὼ λέγω ὑμῖν. If they were incompetent to decide as to the authority of the Prophet who had saluted Jesus as the Messiah, they were obviously incompetent to decide as to His authority.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

International Critical Commentary

8. οὐδὲ ἐγώ. Verbatim as in Mt. and Mk. Their refusal to answer His question cancels their claim to an answer from Him. This they admit by ceasing to press it. See Gould on Mar 11:33.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Luke, in the Gospels, opens this verse with 14 words (13 distinct Greek lemmas). Its most distinctive word is poîos (“of what sort”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word poîos carries the sense “of what sort.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Matthew 19:18, which shares the word «of what sort», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to say” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
Compare how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“to say” occurs 2× in this single verse.
13 distinct Greek lemmas span 14 words in this verse.