What Does 2 Corinthians 3:13 Mean?
And not as Moses, who set a covering over his face, so that the children of Israel could not gaze fixedly toward the end of what was being made idle.
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 not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:THE KEY
The veil keeps the eye from seeing where a fading glory is headed.
THE MEANING
A covering can keep you from seeing that a radiance is fading, or where that fading leads. The thing being brought to an end has a telos, an endpoint, and the veil holds your gaze away from it. What you cannot see may be a transition already underway.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that what is fading must be permanent because its ending is out of view.
THE ROOT
κάλυμμα
kalymma
GROWS FROM
καλύπτω
kalyptō
to cover or conceal
The Greek word for veil belongs to the same root as the act of covering, and its family also gives a word for uncovering. The covering is therefore not just an object in the scene; it names the concealment that keeps the endpoint out of sight.
ALSO GROWS
kalyptō: to cover, conceal
καλύπτω
The veil embodies this covering: it blocks the gaze from reaching what is beyond it.
apokalyptō: to uncover, reveal
ἀποκαλύπτω
This word carries the same root toward disclosure, showing that what is concealed can also be uncovered.
τέλος
telos
GROWS FROM
τελ-
tel-
an endpoint, completion, or aim
The blocked gaze is directed toward the telos of what is being brought to an end. English “end” can sound like a cutoff, while this word can also hold the sense of where a process arrives.
ALSO GROWS
teleō: to finish, accomplish
τελέω
The verb makes the endpoint active: a process arrives at completion.
teleios: complete, mature
τέλειος
This branch shows completion as a reached state, not only a thing that has stopped.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
מָשָׁה
māšāh
to draw out
Moses carries the name of the one drawn out. Here, the drawn-out one stands behind a veil, joining emergence with something still hidden from view.
ALSO GROWS
māšāh: to draw out
מָשָׁה
The verb associated with Moses’s name brings the sense of being drawn through or brought out.
māšûy: drawn out
מָשׁוּי
This form makes the name’s image a state of emergence, which sharpens the contrast with the covered face.
THE PATTERN
A covering can hide the endpoint of what is passing away until the covering is lifted.
And when Moses finished speaking with them, he set a veil upon his face.And in this mountain he will swallow up the face of the covering wrapped over all peoples, and the veil poured out over all nations.In that he says, 'A new covenant,' he has made the first old. And what is wearing thin and growing old is near to passing out of sight.THE THREAD
But whenever it turns to the LORD, the covering is lifted off.The same Greek word for veil appears here and in the next verse. The covering that prevents the gaze from reaching the endpoint can be taken away, and what was hidden becomes visible.
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