What Does 2 Corinthians 13:12 Mean?
Embrace one another with a set-apart kiss.
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
Greet one another with an holy kiss.THE KEY
The kiss is holy because affection itself becomes the form of welcome.
THE MEANING
Welcome takes a bodily form: one person receives another through shared affection, and that affection is set apart. Holiness here lives between people, joined to human warmth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is set apart for God must be emotionally distant: here the holy greeting is a kiss.
THE ROOT
φίλημα
phílēma
GROWS FROM
φιλέω
phileō
to love or show affection
The word for kiss belongs to the family of affection, so this is not a neutral greeting decorated by holiness. The affection is carried in the gesture itself.
ALSO GROWS
phileō: to love or show affection
φιλέω
The verb shares the word-family that gives the kiss its affectionate character.
philos: friend or dear one
φίλος
This related form shows the same affection extending into personal bonds.
philadelphia: brotherly love
φιλαδελφία
The affection in the kiss belongs in a community of care, not only in private intimacy.
ἅγιος
hágios
GROWS FROM
ἁγι-
hagi-
set apart, sacred
The word for holy belongs to a family that also names setting apart and consecration. Joined to an affectionate kiss, the set-apart quality belongs to the welcome itself; sacredness and bodily warmth are held together.
ALSO GROWS
hagiázō: to set apart or make holy
ἁγιάζω
The verb shows the same family expressing the act of setting apart.
hagiasmós: consecration or sanctification
ἁγιασμός
This related noun connects holiness with a state of being set apart.
THE PATTERN
Welcome and honor become visible when affection takes an embodied form.
And when Laban heard the report of Jacob, his sister's son, he ran to meet him, and clasped him, and kissed him, and brought him into his house. And Jacob recounted to Laban all these words.You gave me no kiss, but this woman, since I came in, has not left off kissing my feet.Embrace one another with a kiss of love. Wholeness be with all of you who are in the Anointed One. Amen.THE THREAD
Embrace one another with a kiss of love. Wholeness be with all of you who are in the Anointed One. Amen.Peter uses the same Greek noun for an affectionate kiss, here paired with “charity”; Paul pairs it with “holy.” Together the verses show affection as the embodied expression of a set-apart community.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us