What Does 1 Timothy 5:13 Mean?
And at the same time they learn to be without work, going around from house to house; and not only without work, but babblers also, and those who work around others, speaking what is not needful.
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
And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.THE KEY
The Greek words for “idle” and “busybodies” share the work-root: one has no work of their own, while the other is overactive in everyone else’s affairs.
THE MEANING
A person can be inactive in their own work and still fill their days with restless movement, gossip, and intrusion. The verse names speech as part of that pattern: words can cross into matters where they do not belong. It distinguishes constant activity from work that is truly one’s own.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being constantly occupied means being productive. The verse shows how someone can stay busy while neglecting their own work and meddling in others’ affairs.
THE ROOT
περίεργοι
periergoi
GROWS FROM
ἔργον
ergon
Work, deed, or activity; here it appears in words describing both the absence of work and misplaced activity.
“those who work around others” in this verse is periergoi. The verse places ἀργαί (argai, “idle”) beside περίεργοι (periergoi, “busybodies”), both built around ergon, “work.” English makes idleness and busyness sound like opposites, while the Greek links having no work of one’s own with overactivity in other people’s affairs.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: An undertaking or activity.
ἔργον
This is the work-word at the center of the verse’s contrast.
argos: Without work; commonly analyzed from the negative prefix a- and ergon, “work.”
ἀργός
It clarifies the Greek word translated “idle”: the problem is an absence of work.
periergazomai: To be overactive or meddlesome; the compound combines peri, “around,” with the work-family.
περιεργάζομαι
This related verb makes the verse’s paradox especially clear: no work, yet misplaced activity around other people’s concerns.
THE PATTERN
When a person neglects their own work, restless activity can spill into other people’s affairs.
Whoever passes by and mingles himself in a quarrel not his own is like one who grasps a dog by the ears.For we hear that some walk among you out of rank, working not at all, but busy circling around the work.And to aim at keeping quiet, to tend what is your own, and to work with your own hands, just as we charged you.THE THREAD
For we hear that some walk among you out of rank, working not at all, but busy circling around the work.The Greek repeats the work-family in sharper form: “working not at all” is set against περιεργαζομένους (periergazomenous, “busying themselves in others’ affairs”). The shared word-root reveals the verse’s paradox: no work of one’s own, yet overactivity in the lives of others.
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