What Does 1 John 2:21 Mean?
I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie comes out of the truth.
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
I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.THE KEY
Truth is something you already recognize, and a lie cannot grow from its source.
THE MEANING
The verse addresses you as someone who already knows the truth. A lie does not come from truth and cannot claim its source; the two have different origins.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you are empty of truth until an authority supplies it: the verse addresses you as already knowing. It also rejects the idea that falsehood is simply another expression of truth.
THE ROOT
οἴδατε
oidate
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-
eid-
See or perceive; by extension, know.
The verb translated “know” belongs to the Greek see-and-know family. The line meets you as someone who already recognizes the truth, not someone waiting for information to be supplied.
ALSO GROWS
eidon: saw, perceived
εἶδον
This related form makes the connection between seeing and knowing audible beneath the English word “know.”
eidos: form, appearance
εἶδος
The same word family links knowing with what comes into view and can be recognized.
ἀλήθεια
alētheia
GROWS FROM
ληθ-
lēth-
Be hidden or escape notice; the word’s formation is commonly linked with concealment or forgetting, negated by the opening alpha.
The Greek word for truth is commonly connected to a family of words for concealment and forgetting: truth carries the sense of what is not hidden. Here, “of the truth” marks a source, what is concealed cannot be the origin of truth.
ALSO GROWS
lanthanō: escape notice, remain hidden
λανθάνω
Its sense of being unnoticed gives depth to truth as what is brought out of concealment.
lēthē: forgetfulness, oblivion
λήθη
This related word names what hides truth from recognition, sharpening the verse’s distinction between knowing and falsehood.
ψεῦδος
pseudos
GROWS FROM
ψευδ-
pseud-
Lie or speak falsely; falsehood.
The word for “lie” belongs to a family that names both false speech and what is false. The verse treats a lie as having a source distinct from truth, not as a branch of truth.
ALSO GROWS
pseudomai: lie, speak falsely
ψεύδομαι
This verb shows the same family at work in the act of producing false speech.
pseudēs: false, lying
ψευδής
This adjective describes what bears the nature of the lie the verse excludes from truth.
THE PATTERN
Truth is recognized by its source and its endurance, while falsehood cannot claim to come from it.
The head of your word is truth, and every judgment of your alignment stands for the ages.And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.Therefore, taking off lying, speak truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are limbs of one another.THE THREAD
And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.John 8:32 uses the same Greek word, ἀλήθεια (alētheia), meaning “truth.” This verse shows what truth excludes; John shows what truth opens: freedom.
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