What Does 1 Peter 1:18 Mean?
knowing that you were not loosed with what can be ruined, silver or gold, from your empty walk handed down from your fathers.
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
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;THE KEY
What you inherit can still be released: the verse names your received way of life as the very thing you are brought out of.
THE MEANING
You are released from an empty way of living handed down through your fathers; its origin does not make it unchangeable. Silver and gold cannot purchase that release.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that a way of life inherited from your family is fixed, or that wealth can buy your way out of it.
THE ROOT
ἐλυτρώθητε
elytrōthēte
GROWS FROM
λυτρ- (λυτρόω, lytroō)
To ransom: release from bondage through a price paid.
“loosed” in this verse is elytrōthēte. English can make “redeemed” sound like a status; the Greek word carries release by ransom. Here that release reaches a futile pattern inherited from the fathers, while silver and gold are too perishable to account for it.
ALSO GROWS
lytron: Ransom, the price paid for release.
λύτρον
This branch makes the release in the verse concrete: it is a bringing out, not just a changed label.
apolytrōsis: Release, redemption.
ἀπολύτρωσις
This related word keeps the focus on release itself, the movement away from what held a person.
πατροπαραδότου
patroparadotou
GROWS FROM
παραδίδωμι
paradidōmi
To hand over, pass along.
The word rendered “tradition” describes what has been handed down from the fathers. The verse names that inheritance as a pattern from which release is possible, not as an identity that must remain.
ALSO GROWS
paradosis: Tradition, something handed down.
παράδοσις
This branch shows the verse’s concern is what passes from one generation to another.
paradidōmi: To hand over, deliver.
παραδίδωμι
The same handover that carries a pattern forward makes clear what the release reaches.
THE PATTERN
Release from what binds a person is not measured or purchased with material wealth.
No man can buy back his brother, nor give God a ransom for him.For thus says the LORD, You were sold for nothing, and you shall be bought back without silver.Who gave himself for us, that he might loose us from all living without boundary, and cleanse for himself a people that is his own, burning for good works.THE THREAD
Who gave himself for us, that he might loose us from all living without boundary, and cleanse for himself a people that is his own, burning for good works.Both verses use forms of λυτρόω (lytroō), meaning to release by ransom. Titus shows that this release reaches the conduct itself; 1 Peter names the inherited futile pattern from which you are released.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us