What Does 2 Peter 3:6 Mean?
Through which the world that then was, being washed over with water, perished.
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
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:THE KEY
In Greek, the world that “perished” shares its verb family with what is “lost”, and what is lost can still be sought.
THE MEANING
This verse presents a world completely overtaken by water, and its loss remains stark. The Greek verb also names what is lost, keeping destruction and lostness in one word family. Its living pressure is that what feels like the whole world can end.
THE ROOT
ἀπώλετο
apōleto
GROWS FROM
ἀπόλλυμι (apollymi), from ἀπό (apo, away) + ὄλλυμι (ollymi, destroy)
To destroy, perish, or lose; in some forms, to be lost.
“perished” in this verse is apōleto. This root holds destruction and lostness close together. In Luke 19:10, its “lost” form names someone the Son of Man seeks, so this word family can carry both an ending and the possibility of being found.
ALSO GROWS
apōleia: Loss, ruin, or destruction.
ἀπώλεια
The noun makes explicit the loss held within the verb translated “perished.”
apolōlos: Lost; one who has perished or gone astray.
ἀπολωλός
Luke 19:10 uses this form for the one the Son of Man seeks, linking perishing with lostness.
κατακλυσθείς
kataklystheis
GROWS FROM
κατακλύζω (kataklyzō), from κατά (kata, over) + κλύζω (klyzō, wash over)
To flood over or overwhelm with water.
“washed over” in this verse is kataklystheis. The word pictures water surging over the world until it is submerged. Its word family also names the flood itself, joining the act of inundation to the force that overtakes the world.
ALSO GROWS
kataklyzō: To inundate or overwhelm with water.
κατακλύζω
This is the verb behind “overflowed,” making the world’s submersion an active, encompassing force.
kataklysmos: A flood or deluge.
κατακλυσμός
The related noun names the flood as an event, the same force that overtakes the world in this verse.
κόσμος
kosmos
GROWS FROM
κοσμέω
kosmeō
To arrange or put in order; κόσμος can mean an ordered arrangement or the world.
The Greek word can hold the lived world as an ordered whole, not only the earth as a physical place. Here, the flood overtakes a κόσμος, a whole arrangement of life.
ALSO GROWS
kosmeō: To arrange, order, or adorn.
κοσμέω
This related verb shows the sense of arrangement that can live inside “world.”
kosmios: Orderly or well-arranged.
κόσμιος
This related adjective carries the same family’s sense of ordered arrangement.
THE PATTERN
Floodwaters mark the end of an inhabited order while scripture also names a remnant passing through them.
And every standing thing that was upon the face of the ground was wiped out, from humankind to cattle, to the creeping thing, and to the birds of the heavens, and they were wiped from the earth. Only Noah, and those with him in the ark, were left.and they did not know until the flood came and lifted them all away, so is the presence of the Son of Man.who once refused to yield, while the slowness to heat of God waited in the days of Noah, as the ark was being built, in which few, eight living souls, were delivered through water.THE THREAD
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to deliver that which had lost its way.The Greek verb behind “perished” (ἀπώλετο, apōleto) shares its root with “lost” (ἀπολωλός, apolōlos) here. In this verse, the lost one is sought; the same word family lets the ending here resonate with the possibility of being found.
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