What Does 2 Corinthians 3:17 Mean?

Now the LORD is the breath, and where the breath of the LORD is, there is unbinding.

2 Corinthians 3:17 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

THE KEY

Freedom is not found away from the Lord; it appears where the Lord’s own breath is present.

THE MEANING

The Lord is present as breath, and liberty is where that breath is. The verse speaks to you now: freedom belongs with the Lord’s nearness.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that closeness to the Lord costs you freedom is undone: this verse locates liberty exactly where the Lord is.

THE ROOT

πνεῦμα

pneuma

GROWS FROM

πνέω

pneō

To blow or breathe.

“the breath” in this verse is pneuma. The Greek word translated “Spirit” is pneuma, a word that also means breath or wind. The verse joins the Lord’s presence to this breath, then names liberty as what is found where that presence is.

ALSO GROWS

pneō: To blow or breathe.

πνέω

This verb shows the movement of air and breath within the word family behind pneuma.

pnoē: Breath or a blowing.

πνοή

This related noun keeps the sense of moving breath visible where English gives only “Spirit.”

ἐλευθερία

eleutheria

GROWS FROM

ἐλευθερ-

eleuther-

Free, unbound.

“unbinding” in this verse is eleutheria. Liberty belongs to a Greek word family that names both the free person and the act of setting someone free. Here freedom is tied to the Lord’s presence: where the Lord’s pneuma is, there is eleutheria.

ALSO GROWS

eleutheros: Free; a free person.

ἐλεύθερος

This is the free state named by eleutheria, making liberty more than an abstract idea.

eleutheroō: To set free.

ἐλευθερόω

This verb shows the same word family in motion: liberty is also the act of releasing someone into freedom.

THE PATTERN

Where the Lord’s presence reaches what is bound, freedom appears.

The breath of the Lord LORD is upon me, for the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the bowed ones; he has sent me to bind up the broken of heart, to proclaim flowing freedom to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are chained.

Isaiah 61:1 · SDVThe Lord’s Spirit rests upon the speaker as liberty is proclaimed to captives and prison doors are opened.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be truly free.

John 8:36 · SDVThe Son’s act of freeing brings the reader into the freedom named in this verse.

Stand, then, in the freedom for which the Anointed One set us free, and do not be caught again in the yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1 · SDVThe freedom Christ gives stands opposite to being bound again under a yoke.

THE THREAD

Who has also made us enough to be servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the breath, for the letter kills, but the breath makes alive.

2 Corinthians 3:6 · SDV

The same Greek word, pneuma, appears here as “spirit.” This verse says the pneuma gives life; verse 17 names the Lord as this Spirit and locates liberty where it is present.

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