What Does 1 Corinthians 10:1 Mean?
Now, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all of them passed through the sea.
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
Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;THE KEY
The cloud does not remove the sea; it covers the people as they pass through it together.
THE MEANING
The verse places you within a people held together by a covering while moving through what seems impassable. Protection is present in the passage, not only on the far shore.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that protection means there is no sea to cross, or that each person crosses alone.
THE ROOT
διῆλθον
diēlthon
GROWS FROM
ἔρχομαι (ἐρχ-/ἐλθ-)
Come or go; movement from one place to another.
“passed through” in this verse is diēlthon. The Greek verb διῆλθον comes from διέρχομαι, combining movement with διά, through or across: the sea is framed as a passage. The plural all makes that movement shared, the whole people goes through.
ALSO GROWS
erchomai: Come or go
ἔρχομαι
The base verb gives the crossing its sense of movement from one place to another.
eiserchomai: Enter, go in
εἰσέρχομαι
This related compound shows the same movement-root at the threshold of entering.
exerchomai: Go out, come out
ἐξέρχομαι
This related compound shows movement out from a place, complementing the passage through.
THE PATTERN
A covering accompanies a people through danger without erasing the passage.
And the children of Israel came into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.When you cross through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not kindle upon you.And all were immersed into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.THE THREAD
And all were immersed into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.The next verse names the cloud-and-sea passage as a shared immersion unto Moses. The repeated all keeps the crossing communal: the people pass through as one.
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