Passage

Luke 24.27

"Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." (Luke 24:27, NASB95)

Luke 24:27 is the post-resurrection charter for the christological reading of the Old Testament. On the road to Emmaus the risen Christ rebukes two disciples for failing to grasp that the suffering and glorification of the Messiah was the whole point of the Hebrew canon, then walks them through "Moses and all the prophets" to show what he means. The Christian conviction that the Old Testament is, in its deepest layer, about Jesus traces back here.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"25. And he said unto them, O foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26. Behooved it not the Christ to suffer these things, and to enter into his glory?"

"27. And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

"28. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they were going: and he made as though he would go further. 29. And they constrained him, saying, Abide with us; for it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent. And he went in to abide with them." (Luke 24:25-29, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"25. He said to them, “Foolish men, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26. Didn’t the Christ have to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?”"

"27. Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."

"28. They came near to the village, where they were going, and he acted like he would go further. 29. They urged him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is almost evening, and the day is almost over.” He went in to stay with them." (Luke 24:25-29, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"25. Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?"

"27. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself."

"28. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. 29. But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them." (Luke 24:25-29, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"25. And he said unto them, 'O inconsiderate and slow in heart, to believe on all that the prophets spake! 26. Was it not behoving the Christ these things to suffer, and to enter into his glory?'"

"27. and having begun from Moses, and from all the prophets, he was expounding to them in all the Writings the things about himself."

"28. And they came nigh to the village whither they were going, and he made an appearance of going on further, 29. and they constrained him, saying, 'Remain with us, for it is toward evening,' and the day did decline, and he went in to remain with them." (Luke 24:25-29, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Luke the physician (traditionally) / narrator + the risen Jesus's direct teaching
Audience: Theophilus and a wider Gentile-Christian readership (the companion volume to Acts)
Location: the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus (Luke 24:13), c. seven miles outside the city; composition possibly Caesarea or Rome
Time period: events Easter Sunday c. AD 30/33; Luke-Acts composed c. AD 60-80

Theological reading

The verse does three things at once.

It canonizes a hermeneutic. When the risen Christ does the exposition himself, he sets the precedent: the Old Testament has a unifying subject, and that subject is the Messiah's suffering and glorification. Luke does not record what Jesus said in those hours of walking, but Acts shows the same hermeneutic in apostolic practice (Acts 2:14-36 Peter from Joel and David; Acts 3:18 "all the prophets"; Acts 8:32-35 Philip from Isaiah 53; Acts 13:16-41 Paul through Israel's history to Jesus; Acts 17:2-3 reasoning from the Scriptures). The Lukan pattern is the apostolic pattern because the apostles learned it from the risen Christ.

It scopes "the Scriptures" maximally. The phrase "beginning with Moses and with all the prophets... in all the Scriptures" is intentionally comprehensive. The Hebrew canon is being read as a unified christological witness, not as a grab-bag of proof-texts. This grounds the Christian conviction that the Old Testament's deepest subject is Christ, not a few isolated predictions embedded in unrelated material, but a sustained typological, prophetic, and covenantal trajectory. See Old Testament Christology for the developed case and Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch for why the Pentateuchal layer of this hermeneutic matters historically.

It vindicates the cross. The disciples' problem was not lack of evidence, Jesus had told them three times he must die and rise, but inability to fit the Messiah's suffering into the Scriptures they thought they knew. Christ's reply is not "you misunderstood me," it is "you misread your own Bible." That is a high claim about both the Old Testament and himself. He is the authoritative reader of the canon because he is its subject.

For the apologetic deployment: any objection that Christians "read Jesus into" the Old Testament has to reckon with the fact that the risen Christ himself stipulated this reading on Easter Sunday. The hermeneutic is not a post-hoc Christian invention; according to Luke it is what Jesus taught the disciples to do, before they ever wrote a New Testament book. ris3n uses this verse against the "Pentateuch isn't really about Jesus" deflection during Jewish-evangelism and skeptical-Bible-reliability conversations.

Key words

G3956 - pas, pas, "all the prophets... all the Scriptures"; the comprehensive scope of the christological reading
G5547 - christos, christos, "the Christ" (v. 26); the subject of the whole canon
diermeneuo (Greek, "explained" / "interpreted"), the same root behind "hermeneutics"; Jesus is the original hermeneut of his own Scriptures
graphe (Greek, "Scriptures"), the textual whole being read; "all the Scriptures" = the Hebrew canon Jesus inherited

Theological themes

Christological hermeneutic of the OT, the Old Testament's deepest subject is the Messiah's suffering and glorification; not isolated proof-texts but a unified trajectory
Authority of the OT canon, Jesus treats "Moses and all the prophets" as a coherent, divinely-given whole; foundational for Christian doctrine of Scripture
Resurrection vindication, the risen Christ is the authoritative reader of his own canon; the hermeneutic is Easter-Sunday-old, not patristic invention
Apostolic preaching model, Acts repeatedly mirrors this hermeneutic; Luke 24:27 is the methodological prototype

Cross-references

Luke 24.44, same chapter, Jesus's later articulation: "all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms"
John 5.39, "you search the Scriptures... it is these that testify about Me"
2 Timothy 3.16, "all Scripture is inspired by God"
1 Peter 1.10-11, the prophets searched their own writings concerning the sufferings of Christ
Acts 8:32-35, Acts 17:2-3, Acts 28:23, apostolic deployment of the Luke 24:27 hermeneutic

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.