What Does 1 John 5:16 Mean?
If anyone sees his brother miss the mark with a shortcoming that is not toward death, he asks, and he gives him life for those who miss the mark, not toward death; there is a shortcoming toward death. I do not say that he should ask about that.
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
If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.THE KEY
The verse places asking beside life being given, while refusing to extend that instruction to the missing that is toward death.
THE MEANING
This verse places a brother’s missing before your sight and joins your asking to life being given to him. It also distinguishes missing that is not toward death from missing that is, while leaving that second condition unnamed here.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that every brother’s failure has the same end: the verse distinguishes missing that is not toward death from missing that is.
THE ROOT
ἁμαρτίαν
hamartían
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
hamart-
To miss, err, or go wrong.
“miss the mark” in this verse is hamartían. The word belongs to the same family as the verb for missing and the word for one who misses. The verse distinguishes one kind of missing from another by its direction toward death.
ALSO GROWS
hamartánō: To miss, err, or do wrong.
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb shares the seed of the noun in “sin a sin,” keeping the act and its name in one word family.
hamartōlós: A sinner; one who misses or errs.
ἁμαρτωλός
James uses this word for the person who is turned back, linking the person and the act through the same root family.
ζωή
zōḗ
GROWS FROM
ζω-
zō-
To live; to be alive.
This family moves from living to making alive. Here, the response to a brother’s missing is expressed as life being given, not merely as a change in how he is regarded.
ALSO GROWS
záō: To live; be alive.
ζάω
The noun for life grows from the verb for living, keeping the promised outcome concrete.
zōopoiéō: To make alive; give life.
ζωοποιέω
This related verb makes explicit the giving of life that stands beside the act of asking.
THE PATTERN
Scripture pairs turning from a deathward course with life, sometimes through another person’s care.
For I do not delight in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord LORD. Therefore turn yourselves, and live.We were bound to be glad and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead, and is living again; he had lost his way, and is found."Let him know that the one who turns back one of those who miss the mark from the wandering of his way will deliver a living soul from death, and will cover a multitude of shortcomings.THE THREAD
Let him know that the one who turns back one of those who miss the mark from the wandering of his way will deliver a living soul from death, and will cover a multitude of shortcomings.James uses the same hamart- word family for the sinner and the sins, connecting the person and the missing as 1 John does. It also joins turning someone back to life beyond death, opening the relational movement in this verse further.
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