What Does 2 Timothy 1:14 Mean?
Guard the good thing placed beside you, through the Set-Apart Breath which makes its home in us.
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
That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.THE KEY
The good entrusted to you is guarded through the Set-Apart Breath already dwelling in us.
THE MEANING
What is entrusted to you is kept through the Set-Apart Breath dwelling in us. Keeping is not only your effort: the breath within you is part of how the good is guarded.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that what is good survives only through your own vigilance. The verse locates its keeping in the Set-Apart Breath dwelling in us.
THE ROOT
φύλαξον
phylaxon
GROWS FROM
φυλασσ-
phylass-
To guard, watch over, or keep safe.
“guard” in this verse is phylaxon. The word carries the sense of guarding what has been entrusted, not merely holding onto it. The verse names the Set-Apart Breath dwelling in us as the means of that protection.
ALSO GROWS
phylax: A guard or watchman.
φύλαξ
The branch makes the guarding in this verse vivid: the good deposit is watched over.
phylakē: A watch, guard, or place of confinement.
φυλακή
The same word family can name both keeping watch and being held under guard, underscoring that the root concerns protection and custody.
παραθήκην
parathēkēn
GROWS FROM
παρά + τίθημι (para + tithēmi)
To place beside or set before; by extension, to entrust as a deposit.
“placed beside you” in this verse is parathēkēn. The “good thing” is expressed as a deposit placed in your care. English can make it sound like a vague quality, while the Greek pictures something entrusted that can be guarded.
ALSO GROWS
tithēmi: To put, place, or set.
τίθημι
This is the placing at the heart of the image: something is put into your care.
paratithēmi: To place before or entrust.
παρατίθημι
This related verb brings out the act of committing something to another’s care.
πνεύματος
pneumatos
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breath, blowing, or moving air; the word also means spirit.
The one through whom the deposit is guarded is named by the same Greek word that means breath. The verse joins keeping to the Set-Apart Breath dwelling in us, a present and shared indwelling.
ALSO GROWS
pneō: To blow or breathe.
πνέω
This verb makes the word’s breath and movement sense audible beneath the English “Ghost.”
pnoē: Breath or a blowing.
πνοή
This related noun shows the same breath-language in another form.
THE PATTERN
What is entrusted is preserved through God’s sustaining presence and power.
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.The breath of truth, which the world cannot take hold of, because it does not gaze upon it or know it; but you know it, for it remains beside you and will be in you.who are guarded by the strength of God through trust, unto deliverance prepared to be unveiled in the last season.THE THREAD
For this reason I also suffer these things, yet I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have leaned my weight upon, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard what I have placed beside him into that day.The same Greek words for “keep” and “deposit” appear here: in this verse, the good deposit is entrusted to you and guarded through the Breath dwelling in us; in verse 12, what is entrusted is kept by God. The two verses open a mutual image of trust and keeping.
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