What Does 2 Peter 1:14 Mean?
Knowing that the laying down of my tent is swift, as our Lord, Jesus the Anointed One, has shown me.
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
Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.THE KEY
The verse calls the body a tent, distinguishing the dwelling that is laid aside from the one who inhabits it.
THE MEANING
The body you inhabit is a real dwelling, and the verse names it as one that can be laid aside. It lets mortality remain concrete while distinguishing the dwelling from the person who must put it off. The ending is spoken plainly, not hidden behind a softened phrase.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that the body is permanent or the totality of the person: the verse calls it a dwelling that can be laid aside.
THE ROOT
σκηνώματος
skēnōmatos
GROWS FROM
σκην-
skēn
The Greek stem σκην- (skēn) carries the image of a tent or dwelling.
The Greek word carries the concrete image of a tent or dwelling alongside the sacred resonance of “tabernacle.” It describes a lived-in shelter that can be laid aside.
ALSO GROWS
skēnē: tent, tabernacle
σκηνή
This related noun keeps the image anchored in a shelter that is inhabited.
skēnoō: dwell, pitch a tent
σκηνόω
This verb shares the tent image and appears in John’s description of the Word dwelling among people.
ἀπόθεσις
apothesis
GROWS FROM
ἀπό + τίθημι (apo + tithēmi)
A laying aside: ἀπό (apo) means away, and τίθημι (tithēmi) means put or place.
“laying down” in this verse is apothesis. The word gives “put off” the shape of a concrete removal: something is laid aside. Its word family can describe setting aside other things as well, so the verse presents the body’s ending as the laying aside of a dwelling.
ALSO GROWS
apotithēmi: put away, lay aside
ἀποτίθημι
This related verb appears in 1 Peter 2:1 for laying aside malice, showing the same language of removal.
tithēmi: put, place, set
τίθημι
The base verb supplies the act of placing; with ἀπό (apo, away), it becomes a placing aside.
THE PATTERN
Scripture uses dwelling images to hold bodily life as truly inhabited and finite.
And the dust turns back upon the earth as it was, and the breath turns back to God, who gave it.For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is taken down, we have a house built by God, not made by hands, of the ages, in the heavens.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.John’s “dwelt” is ἐσκήνωσεν (eskēnōsen, pitched a tent or dwelt), from the same σκην- (skēn, tent or dwelling) family as “tabernacle” here. The shared root gives the image a striking range: the body is a dwelling that can be laid aside, and flesh is also where presence takes up residence.
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