What Does 1 Thessalonians 4:5 Mean?
not in the passion of craving, as also the nations, who do not know God,
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
Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:THE KEY
KJV’s doubled phrase “lust of concupiscence” hides a Greek distinction between the passion that fills a person and the craving that drives it.
THE MEANING
The verse names sexual desire as more than an isolated impulse: it can fill a person’s inner state. It sets that mode of desire beside not recognizing God, so the contrast concerns what fills the inner life and what remains in view. The word translated “know” carries the sense of seeing or recognizing, not simply having information.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that sexual desire is sealed off from spiritual perception; the verse places the passion of craving alongside not recognizing God.
THE ROOT
πάθει
pathei
GROWS FROM
παθ-
path-
to undergo, experience, or be affected
The Greek phrase is in a passion of desire: πάθος names an experienced or felt state, while the following word names the craving within it. The phrase describes desire as an inner condition, not merely an isolated act.
ALSO GROWS
paschō: undergo, experience, suffer
πάσχω
This verb shows the root’s sense of being affected or undergoing an experience.
pathēma: an experience or something suffered
πάθημα
This related noun makes clear that πάθος can name a condition a person undergoes.
ἐπιθυμίας
epithymias
GROWS FROM
θυμ-
thym-
heat, passion, or impulse
The word names the craving itself, with the stem θυμ- carrying a sense of heat or passion. Paired with πάθος, it depicts desire not as a neutral preference but as a heated longing that can fill a person’s inner state.
ALSO GROWS
thymos: heat, passion, or anger
θυμός
This related word preserves the force and intensity carried by the shared stem.
epithymeō: desire, long for, or covet
ἐπιθυμέω
The verb shows the same word family as an active reaching of desire toward its object.
εἰδότα
eidota
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-
eid-
see or perceive, extended to knowing
“do not know” in this verse is eidota. The verb translated “know” is historically related to εἴδω, to see. Its sense of knowing retains a shade of recognition, so the verse’s contrast reaches beyond information to what a person perceives about God.
ALSO GROWS
eidon: saw
εἶδον
This form makes the root’s connection to seeing explicit.
eidos: form or appearance
εἶδος
This related word names what is seen, reinforcing the root’s connection to perception.
THE PATTERN
What fills the inner life shapes what a person can recognize and keep in view.
The wicked, with his nose held high, will not seek God; God is not in all his schemes.Because, having known God, they did not glorify him as God, nor did they give thanks; but they were made empty in their thoughts, and their senseless heart was darkened.with their understanding gone dark, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart,THE THREAD
Then they said to him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You do not know me or my Father; had you known me, you would have known my Father also.John uses the same Greek verb for “know,” οἶδα (oida), as 1 Thessalonians 4:5. Its connection to seeing and recognition sharpens the phrase “know not God”: it describes a failure of recognition, not merely a lack of information.
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