What Does 2 Corinthians 11:28 Mean?
Apart from the outside things, the pressure upon me each day, the pulling apart over all the assemblies.
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
Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.THE KEY
The Greek word for care is linked to apportioning: all the assemblies claim a share of Paul’s attention, day after day.
THE MEANING
This verse recognizes the daily pressure of holding many communities in view. Care is real labor, even when its work is carried in attention rather than seen from the outside.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that unseen care is weightless: attention to people can itself be a daily burden.
THE ROOT
μέριμνα
merimna
GROWS FROM
μερίζω
merizō
To divide, apportion, or assign shares.
“the pulling apart over” in this verse is merimna. The Greek word family links care with dividing or apportioning. That connection gives Paul’s daily concern a texture English leaves unstated: care for all the assemblies takes a share of his attention, again and again.
ALSO GROWS
merizō: To divide, distribute, or assign a share.
μερίζω
Its sense of apportioning makes visible how concern extends across all the assemblies.
meris: A portion or share.
μέρις
The idea of a portion echoes how the many communities occupy a share of Paul’s daily attention.
THE PATTERN
Care has weight, and scripture depicts that weight as borne together or entrusted beyond the self.
You will surely wither, both you and this people with you, for this word is too heavy for you; you are not able to do it alone.Carry one another's weights, and so you fill up the instruction of the Anointed One.throwing all your divided care upon him, for you matter to him.THE THREAD
For I have no one of level living soul, who will genuinely care for the things concerning you.The verb translated “care” here belongs to the same Greek word family as the care that comes upon Paul daily. The shared root shows concern both as a pressure borne across many assemblies and as a quality of attention another person can share.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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