What Does 1 Peter 3:20 Mean?
who once refused to yield, while the slowness to heat of God waited in the days of Noah, as the ark was being built, in which few, eight living souls, were delivered through water.
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
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.THE KEY
The eight are carried safely through the water, and Noah’s name (נֹחַ, Noach, rest) places shelter inside the passage, not outside it.
THE MEANING
God’s patience leaves room while resistance persists, and the ark keeps being prepared in that interval. A small company passes through the waters inside a vessel, so preservation means being carried through danger rather than kept outside its reach. The passage speaks now wherever life is held through a force it cannot stop.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that safety means never entering a dangerous passage is undone here: the eight are preserved as the waters rise around them.
THE ROOT
διεσώθησαν
diesōthēsan
GROWS FROM
σῴζω (sōzō, deliver), with διά (dia, through)
Deliver or rescue; with διά (dia, through), carry safely through.
“delivered” in this verse is diesōthēsan. The verb διεσώθησαν (diesōthēsan, were brought safely through) carries the sense of passage in its form. Water is the route of rescue in this sentence, not simply the hazard from which the eight are removed.
ALSO GROWS
sōzō: Deliver, rescue, save
σῴζω
This is the saving root echoed in the next verse, where immersion also saves.
sōtēria: Deliverance, rescue
σωτηρία
This noun carries the same rescue root, keeping the focus on being brought out and through.
μακροθυμία
makrothymia
GROWS FROM
μακροθυμ-
makrothym-
Patience; being long before heat or anger rises.
“slowness to heat” in this verse is makrothymia. The word joins μακρός (makros, long) with θυμός (thymos, heat or anger): patience is the long interval before heat rises. God’s waiting here is an active interval in which the ark is still being prepared.
ALSO GROWS
makrothymos: Long-tempered, slow to flare
μακρόθυμος
This related form makes the emotional restraint inside longsuffering visible.
makrothymeō: Be patient, remain slow to heat
μακροθυμέω
This verb shows longsuffering as an ongoing posture of restraint.
נֹחַ
Noach
GROWS FROM
נוח
nuach
Rest, settle down.
Noah’s name carries the idea of rest within a passage of flood and danger. The ark becomes shelter where life is held while the waters move around it, so rest here exists within upheaval rather than in its absence.
ALSO GROWS
nuach: Rest, settle
נוּחַ
The root gives Noah’s name its nature: one who rests or settles.
menuchah: Rest, resting place
מְנוּחָה
This branch makes the ark’s sheltering function resonate with the rest carried in Noah’s name.
THE PATTERN
God’s provision can carry living beings through waters that also divide, lift, or overwhelm.
And the flood was forty days upon the earth, and the waters multiplied and lifted the ark, and it was raised high above the earth.And the children of Israel walked on the dry ground in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them, on their right hand and on their left.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. And all were immersed into Moses, in the cloud and in the sea.THE THREAD
Its corresponding imprint, immersion, now also delivers you, not the taking off of the dirt of the flesh, but the pledge of a good shared sight toward God, through the rising of Jesus, the Anointed One.The next verse uses σώζει (sōzei, saves), from the same root as διεσώθησαν (diesōthēsan, were brought safely through) here. It extends the image: deliverance is movement through water into renewed life.
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