What Does 2 Corinthians 13:9 Mean?
For we rejoice when we are weak, and you are strong. And this also we pray for, your mending.
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
For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.THE KEY
The word rendered “perfection” carries the sense of mending and restoration: the aim is your wholeness, not flawlessness.
THE MEANING
The verse welcomes your strength even when the voice beside you is weak; one does not cancel the other. Its desire for your “perfection” is a desire for you to be restored and set in sound order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the person guiding you must first appear strong for you to grow strong: the verse calls your strength gladness even amid the speaker’s weakness.
THE ROOT
κατάρτισις
katártisis
GROWS FROM
καταρτίζω
katartizō
To mend, restore, or fit something into working order.
“Perfection” can sound like a demand for flawlessness, but this word carries the sense of being restored and set in order. Its word family describes both mending what is damaged and equipping what is being made ready, so the verse’s wish is for wholeness that can live and work.
ALSO GROWS
katartizō: To mend, restore, or put in order.
καταρτίζω
Matthew 4:21 uses this verb for mending nets: what is restored is made ready for its work again.
katartismos: Equipping or preparation.
καταρτισμός
Ephesians 4:12 uses this related noun for equipping, showing restoration as being made ready for what one is meant to do.
THE PATTERN
Restoration brings what is damaged or depleted back into its proper work and path.
He turns back my living soul; he leads me in the tracks of alignment for the sake of his nature.And stepping forward from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.Brothers, even if a person is caught in a stumble, you who are of the breath, mend such a one in the breath of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tested.THE THREAD
Brothers, even if a person is caught in a stumble, you who are of the breath, mend such a one in the breath of gentleness, watching yourself, lest you also be tested.The word “restore” here comes from the same Greek word family as the noun rendered “perfection” in 2 Corinthians 13:9. The connection makes the wish concrete: wholeness is pictured as a person being restored with gentleness.
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