What Does 2 Thessalonians 3:6 Mean?
Now we pass along to you, brothers, in the nature of our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, that you draw yourselves back from every brother who walks out of rank, and not according to the handing over you took from our hand.
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
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.THE KEY
The word translated “tradition” means a handing over: what is passed on becomes visible in the way a person walks.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you inside a community whose shared teaching has a recognizable shape in how people walk. Its command to withdraw sits beside the word brother: kinship remains named, while distance is commanded when conduct breaks from the received pattern. Spoken in the nature of the Lord Jesus, the command binds its authority to that pattern.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that shared brotherhood requires unbroken closeness regardless of conduct.
THE ROOT
παράδοσιν
parádosin
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
give; hand over
“handing over” in this verse is parádosin. Παράδοσις (parádosis, tradition) comes from παραδίδωμι (paradídōmi, hand over or deliver). The verse places a handed-over teaching beside a way of walking: what is received takes shape in conduct.
ALSO GROWS
paradídōmi: hand over; deliver
παραδίδωμι
This is the verb behind “tradition,” making the teaching itself a handover from one person to another.
metadídōmi: share; impart
μεταδίδωμι
This compound shows the same giving root passing something onward for others to receive.
apodídōmi: give back; render
ἀποδίδωμι
The same root can describe what is rendered in return, illuminating how a received way carries consequences into a person’s conduct.
ἀτάκτως
ataktōs
GROWS FROM
τάσσω
arrange; assign; set in order
“walks out of rank” in this verse is ataktōs. In ἀτάκτως (ataktōs, disorderly), the negative prefix marks a walk outside what has been arranged or assigned. The word describes a way of moving through shared life, giving “walketh disorderly” a pattern of conduct rather than a passing disagreement.
ALSO GROWS
táxis: arrangement; order
τάξις
This noun from the same family makes the order absent from ἀτάκτως visible.
átaktos: out of order; undisciplined
ἄτακτος
This is the adjective underlying the verse’s adverb and carries the same sense of being outside the arrangement.
syntássō: arrange together; draw up
συντάσσω
This compound shows the root at work in bringing things into an ordered whole.
στέλλεσθαι
stellesthai
GROWS FROM
στέλλω
prepare; set in order; in the middle voice, draw back or keep away
“draw yourselves back” in this verse is stellesthai. The middle form στέλλεσθαι (stellesthai, withdraw yourselves) describes taking oneself back from someone. Its root also appears in words for sending and drawing together, so the verse’s boundary is an enacted withdrawal from shared company.
ALSO GROWS
apostéllō: send away; dispatch
ἀποστέλλω
This compound keeps the root’s sense of movement away from a point, clarifying the force of withdrawal.
systéllō: draw together; contract; restrain
συστέλλω
This branch shows the root’s other movement: drawing inward or holding back.
epistéllō: send word; write instructions
ἐπιστέλλω
Here the root carries something outward as a message, contrasting with the middle form’s drawing oneself back.
THE PATTERN
A received way becomes visible in conduct, and departure from it redraws the boundaries of shared life.
Let go of it, and leave it; do not cross over it. Turn aside from it, and pass on.But now I have written to you not to mix together with anyone named a brother, if he is a trader of bodies, or one who holds more, or a servant of images, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a snatcher, and not even to eat together with such a one.If anyone comes to you and does not carry this teaching, do not take him into your house, nor bid him rejoice.THE THREAD
For we hear that some walk among you out of rank, working not at all, but busy circling around the work.The same Greek adverb ἀτάκτως (ataktōs, disorderly) appears here and names the walk through its concrete pattern. The verse connects that pattern with refusing work and meddling in others’ affairs.
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