What Does 1 Thessalonians 2:18 Mean?
For we wished to come to you, I, Paul, once and twice, but the Adversary cut across our way.
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
Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.THE KEY
The Greek word for hindered carries the image of a path being cut across, so the obstruction and the desire to come remain real in the same sentence.
THE MEANING
A desire to reach you can remain real even when the adversary cuts across the path. The verse holds the intended meeting and its interruption together, so the blockage does not erase the desire.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A blocked path proves that the desire to reach you was never sincere.
THE ROOT
ἐνέκοψεν
enekopsen
GROWS FROM
κοπ-
cut, strike
“hindered” in this verse is enekopsen. The verb for hindering is built from a stem meaning to cut or strike. It shows an interruption as something cutting across forward movement, while the wish to come remains intact.
ALSO GROWS
kóptō: to cut, strike
κόπτω
This is the verbal base of ἐνέκοψεν and carries the cut or strike at the center of the obstruction.
enkopḗ: hindrance, interruption
ἐγκοπή
This related noun uses the same κοπ stem for an obstacle that interrupts progress.
THE PATTERN
A journey can be interrupted without its intended direction or desire disappearing.
And he said to them, Do not hold me back, since the LORD has made my road break through; send me away that I may go to my master.For this reason also I have been cut off many times from coming to you.Now when they had passed through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, and had been hindered by the Set-Apart Breath from speaking the word in Asia,THE THREAD
For this reason also I have been cut off many times from coming to you.Romans 15:22 uses the same Greek verb-family, ἐγκόπτω, for being hindered from coming. The repeated root presents the obstruction as a cut across the route, not proof that the desire to reach someone was absent.
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