What Does 2 Peter 3:5 Mean?
For they wish this to escape them, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth set together out of water and through water.
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
For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:THE KEY
The verse calls ignorance a willing act of not noticing: the earth’s apparent stability is described as standing by God’s word and through water.
THE MEANING
Willful ignorance is a chosen failure to register what the world around you discloses. The heavens above you exist by God’s word, while the earth is described as constituted out of water and through water. Its solidity is real, yet it is not self-originating or independent of the word that gives it order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A stable world must be self-sufficient, with no dependence on God’s word.
THE ROOT
ἔλαθεν
elathen
GROWS FROM
λανθ- (lanth-), from λανθάνω (lanthanō)
To escape notice or remain hidden from awareness.
“escape them” in this verse is elathen. The KJV’s “willingly are ignorant” compresses a vivid phrase: this truth “escaped” them while they were willing. Ignorance here is a willing non-noticing; what slips from view is that the world’s order stands by God’s word and through water.
ALSO GROWS
lēthē: Forgetfulness
λήθη
This related word makes the root’s link between not noticing and forgetting visible.
láthra: Secretly, in secret
λάθρᾳ
This branch carries the same sense of something kept out of notice.
λόγῳ
logō
GROWS FROM
λογ- (log-), the word-family of λέγω (legō)
Speaking or telling; also an account or reason.
The Greek word translated “word” can also name an account or reasoned statement. Here God’s word is not merely sound: it is the ordering account by which the heavens and earth are described as existing.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, account
λογίζομαι
This branch shows the family’s connection between words and giving an account.
logikos: Rational, belonging to reason
λογικός
This branch carries the family’s sense of intelligible order.
συνεστῶσα
synestōsa
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι (histēmi), in συνίστημι (synistēmi)
To stand or set; with συν- (syn-), to stand together, be constituted, or hold together.
“set together” in this verse is synestōsa. The word behind “standing” can describe something constituted or held together, not only something upright. The earth is pictured as having taken form and standing together through water by God’s word.
ALSO GROWS
histēmi: Stand, set in place
ἵστημι
This is the basic standing sense within the compound used for the earth.
synestēken: Consists, holds together
συνέστηκεν
The same verb family describes all things as holding together in Colossians 1:17.
systasis: Composition, constitution
σύστασις
This related form makes explicit the sense of something assembled or constituted.
THE PATTERN
Creation is presented as ordered by God’s word, with waters serving as the medium from which earth emerges.
And God said, "Let the waters beneath the heavens be pooled into one place, and let the dry land be seen." And it was so.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.By trust we perceive that the ages were fitted together by the word of God, so that what is seen did not come out of what appears.THE THREAD
And he is before all things, and in him all things stand together.The Greek verb behind “standing” in Peter is συνίστημι (synistēmi), the same verb rendered “consist” here. The shared root connects the earth being constituted through water with the coherence of all things.
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