The Bible on Zacchaeus

What the text says

The entire textual record of Zacchaeus is Luke 19:1–10 — ten verses, no parallels in any other Gospel. The passage:

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he could not see over the crowd, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, who was about to pass that way.

When Jesus came to that place, He looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down, for I must stay at your house today.” So Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Him joyfully.

And all who saw this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man.”

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I repay it fourfold.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Several details the text gives:

• Chief tax collector (Greek architelōnēs, ἀρχιτελώνης) — the rank is used only here in the New Testament. Tax collection in Roman Judea was organised in a tax-farming system; a chief tax collector held a contract for revenue collection in a region and would employ subordinate collectors. Jericho was a substantial commercial centre, on the trade route between Jerusalem and the east; the position carried significant income.
• Rich — the text says this explicitly (plousios).
• Small in stature (hēlikia mikros) — the Greek hēlikia can mean stature, age, or maturity; the standard reading is physical height.
• Sycamore tree — Greek sykomorea, a tree similar to a fig (not the European sycamore, which is a different species). Common in the Jordan valley.

The Greek question

The phrase usually translated “half of my possessions I will give” and “if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times” uses the Greek present tense in both verbs:

• Tà hēmísia tōn hyparchontōn mou … dídōmi — “half of my possessions I give”
• Apodídōmi tetraploun — “I pay back fourfold”

In Greek, the present tense indicative can describe a current ongoing action (“I am giving”), a habitual practice (“I give, as a rule”), or a vivid present-for-future construction (“I will give, here and now”). The verbs do not have an explicit future morphology.

This means the passage can be read in at least two ways:

1. Conversion reading. Zacchaeus, having met Jesus, promises here and now to give half and to make fourfold restitution. The grumblers had called him a sinner; this is his moment of repentance. Jesus’s response — “Today salvation has come to this house” — confirms the change.

2. Vindication reading. Zacchaeus says he already does these things — habitually. The grumblers’ assumption that all tax collectors cheat is wrong in his case. “If I have cheated anyone” (Greek ei tinos ti esykophantēsa — first-class conditional, indicating uncertainty rather than denial) reads as a defensive disclaimer. Jesus’s response affirms what was already true, against the crowd’s calumny.

The Greek syntax supports both. Scholars are divided. Joel Green’s commentary on Luke argues for the vindication reading; older standard commentaries (e.g. I. Howard Marshall) read the passage as a conversion narrative. The passage is one of the most-cited examples of how tense and aspect in Greek complicate translation into English’s clearer future/past distinction.

QFB does not resolve the question. The text supports both readings, and which one the translator selects shapes the entire narrative.

What the text doesn’t say

That Zacchaeus was a “sinner” in any specific sense beyond his profession. The grumblers’ label amartōlos (ἁμαρτωλός) is a category label — tax collectors were collaborators with Roman occupation and presumed to be venal — not a textually specified set of offences against Zacchaeus personally.

What happened to him afterward. The text records nothing beyond Luke 19:10. The substantial Eastern Orthodox tradition that identifies him with the first bishop of Caesarea is post-biblical.

That he was a Pharisee or had previous religious instruction. The text records only that he wanted to see Jesus.

Key verse

Luke 19:8:

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I repay it fourfold.”

Both verbs in the Greek are present-tense indicatives. English translations are forced to choose between “I give” and “I will give” — the Greek does not force the choice.

Read in other translations

The passages above use the BSB and KJV — both public domain. To read Luke 19:8 in copyrighted modern translations, follow the links to BibleGateway:

• Luke 19 — full chapter on Bible1.org →
• Luke 19:8 — NIV →
• Luke 19:8 — ESV →
• Luke 19:8 — NLT →
• Luke 19:8 — NASB →
• Luke 19:8 — CSB →

Original language note

Zakkay (זַכַּי) — the Hebrew name means “pure” or “innocent,” from the root zakah (זָכָה, “to be clean, to be innocent”). The name is attested in post-exilic Hebrew sources (it appears as the name of a returnee from Babylon in Ezra 2:9 / Nehemiah 7:14). For a tax collector to bear a name meaning “innocent” — and for the Gospel to record the name — is a fact the text presents without commentary. Whether Luke notes the irony is a matter of reader inference.

Related reading

• The Bible on Judas Iscariot — another money-related figure with a long-disputed textual reading
• In their own words: Jesus on money — Jesus’s recorded teaching about wealth and possessions