What Does 1 Thessalonians 5:22 Mean?
Keep yourselves away from every shape of evil.
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
Abstain from all appearance of evil.THE KEY
“Appearance” also means “form” or “kind,” so the verse reaches every shape evil takes, not only a bad impression.
THE MEANING
This verse names a boundary in the reader’s life: evil comes in many forms, and the call is to keep apart from all of them. Discernment reaches beyond what something looks like to others and attends to the kind of thing it is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that evil is only about the impression something makes: the word also reaches each form or kind of evil itself.
THE ROOT
εἶδος
eidos
GROWS FROM
εἰδ-
eid-
See; what is seen, its form or kind.
Eidos names what comes into view: a form, shape, or kind. Here, “all” reaches every form evil takes, while “appearance” also retains its sense of what is visible.
ALSO GROWS
eidō: See, perceive.
εἴδω
Its sense of seeing underlies eidos as what is seen.
eidōlon: Image, likeness.
εἴδωλον
An image is a visible form, making the link between appearance and kind concrete.
ἀπέχεσθε
apechesthe
GROWS FROM
ἀπέχω (apéchō), from ἀπό (apó) + ἔχω (échō)
Hold away; keep at a distance.
“keep yourselves away” in this verse is apechesthe. The verb carries the sense of keeping oneself away. Its scope matches “every form”: the distance is from evil itself in all its forms.
ALSO GROWS
échō: Hold, have.
ἔχω
This verb supplies the sense of holding in ἀπέχω, which turns into holding oneself away.
apochē: Abstinence, holding back.
ἀποχή
This related noun carries the same idea of maintaining distance.
THE PATTERN
Discernment turns from evil and holds close to what is good.
Turn aside from evil and do good; seek wholeness and pursue it.Let love be without a mask. Recoil from what is evil; cling to what is good.Let him turn aside from evil and do good; let him seek wholeness and pursue it.THE THREAD
But the Lord is steady, who will steady you and guard you from the one who works harm.The same Greek word, πονηρός (ponēros, evil), appears in both verses. One names keeping distance from every form of evil; the other names the Lord’s keeping from that same evil.
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