What Does 2 Peter 1:20 Mean?
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture comes to be by one's own unbinding.
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 this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.THE KEY
Prophecy does not begin in a speaker’s private interpretation; the speaker is not the source of the word.
THE MEANING
The prophecy you encounter is not generated by an individual’s private reading of what they see. A human voice may carry it, but the word’s origin lies beyond the speaker’s own act of explanation.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that a prophetic word starts as one person’s private insight and gains authority only because that person claims it.
THE ROOT
ἐπιλύσεως
epilyseōs
GROWS FROM
λύω (lyō), in ἐπιλύω (epilyō)
λύω (lyō) means to loosen or untie; ἐπιλύω (epilyō) extends this to explaining or resolving.
“one's own unbinding” in this verse is epilyseōs. The Greek ἐπιλύσεως (epilyseōs, explanation or interpretation) is built from ἐπιλύω (epilyō, explain or resolve), whose root λύω (lyō) means loosen or untie. Paired with ἰδίας (idias, one’s own), it frames the verse as a claim about where prophecy comes from: it does not issue from the speaker’s own act of explanation.
ALSO GROWS
lyō: To loosen, untie, or release.
λύω
Its basic sense gives “interpretation” the image of loosening or resolving what is bound.
epilyō: To explain, interpret, or resolve.
ἐπιλύω
Mark 4:34 uses this verb when Jesus explains things to his disciples, showing the same word family at work in an act of explanation.
ἰδίας
idias
GROWS FROM
ἴδιος
idios
ἴδιος (idios) means one’s own, belonging or pertaining to oneself.
“one's own unbinding” in this verse is idias. The wording emphasizes ownership: prophecy is not the speaker’s own private resolution. This is a claim about prophecy’s source, not a ban on someone privately explaining it.
ALSO GROWS
kat’ idian: Privately, apart, or alone.
κατ’ ἰδίαν
Mark 4:34 uses this phrase for Jesus speaking privately with his disciples, echoing the word family in this verse.
idion: One’s own, or what belongs to oneself.
ἴδιον
This form makes the ownership sense of ἴδιος (idios) visible: the verse denies that prophecy originates in what is merely one person’s own.
προφητεία
prophēteia
GROWS FROM
φημί (phēmi), in προφητεύω (prophēteuō)
φημί (phēmi) means to speak or say; προφητεύω (prophēteuō) means to speak prophetically or declare.
“prophecy” in this verse is prophēteia. The word centers on prophetic speech, not only prediction. The verse’s focus is the source of that speech: the person who speaks is not its origin.
ALSO GROWS
prophētēs: A prophet, one who speaks prophetically.
προφήτης
The related noun keeps a human speaker in view while the verse distinguishes the speaker from prophecy’s source.
prophēteuō: To prophesy or speak prophetically.
προφητεύω
This related verb shows prophecy as an act of speaking, whose origin is the question this verse raises.
THE PATTERN
Prophetic words pass through human voices, but their source is God.
The breath of the LORD speaks in me, and his word is on my tongue.All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, for exposure, for straightening again, for the training in alignment.THE THREAD
But without a parable he did not speak to them. Privately, to his own disciples, he untied all things.Mark uses ἐπέλυεν (epelyen, he explained) from ἐπιλύω (epilyō, to explain), alongside κατ’ ἰδίαν (kat’ idian, privately), echoing both word families in 2 Peter. Private explanation is an action; 2 Peter speaks about prophecy’s source, which does not originate in a person’s own resolution.
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