What Does 2 Peter 2:6 Mean?
And he reduced the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ash, condemning them with an overturning, making them a pattern for those who would live without awe.
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 turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;THE KEY
The ashes are not just what remains after judgment; they are the example made visible.
THE MEANING
The cities’ collapse is exposed as a pattern that condemns the way leading toward ungodliness. The image still addresses the reader now: ruin can become a visible warning whose meaning is carried forward by what remains.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that destruction is only an ending, leaving nothing to teach those who follow. Here the overthrow becomes an example for those still to come.
THE ROOT
ὑπόδειγμα
hypodeigma
GROWS FROM
δεικ-
deik-
To show or point out.
English “example” can sound like an illustration attached to the story. The Greek word belongs to the family of showing: the overthrow is set in view as a pattern that makes the outcome legible.
ALSO GROWS
deiknymi: To show, point out.
δείκνυμι
This is the root action: making something visible for another to see.
hypodeiknymi: To show or point out.
ὑποδείκνυμι
This related verb carries the act of presenting something as a demonstration.
apodeixis: Demonstration, proof.
ἀπόδειξις
A demonstration makes its point through what it sets before the observer.
καταστροφή
katastrophē
GROWS FROM
στρεφ-
streph-
To turn or twist.
“condemning them with an overturning” in this verse is katastrophē. The Greek word carries the image of a turning over. The city’s collapse is not an abstract verdict here: its overturned state is what becomes visible as an example.
ALSO GROWS
strephō: To turn, twist.
στρέφω
This is the turning motion contained in the word for overthrow.
katastrephō: To overturn, overthrow.
καταστρέφω
This form makes the turning downward explicit, matching the cities’ collapse.
apostrephō: To turn away.
ἀποστρέφω
The same root can describe a turning in another direction, showing how much meaning the root carries beyond simple destruction.
THE PATTERN
What is overturned becomes a visible warning for those who come after.
And he overturned those cities, and all the plain, and all who settled in those cities, and what sprouted from the ground.Just as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in like manner, poured themselves out in fornication and went away after other flesh, lie before you as a display, bearing the penalty of the fire of the age.Now all these things happened to them as imprints, and they were written to set our minds, for the ends of the ages have come upon us.THE THREAD
For I have given you a pattern, that you also should do as I have done to you.The Greek word translated “ensample” here, ὑπόδειγμα (hypodeigma), is the same word Jesus uses for “example.” Its root centers on showing: here the visible pattern is ruin; in Jesus’ sentence it is an enacted model.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us