What Does Ephesians 2:17 Mean?
And he came and brought good news of wholeness to you who were far off, and wholeness to those near.
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 came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.THE KEY
The Greek repeats “wholeness” for both the far and the near: neither distance receives a lesser welcome.
THE MEANING
Wholeness reaches you whether you feel far away or already near. The same announcement addresses both distances; there is no separate kind of welcome for either one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that being far makes you unreachable, or being near makes you more entitled to wholeness.
THE ROOT
εἰρήνην
eirēnēn
GROWS FROM
εἰρην-
eirēn-
Wholeness; a joined, unbroken state.
The word here is εἰρήνην (eirēnēn), “wholeness,” and Greek repeats it before both the far and the near. English says “peace” once, but the sentence gives each the same word.
ALSO GROWS
eirēneuō: To be at peace; to live in peace.
εἰρηνεύω
The same word family describes wholeness as a lived condition, not just an announcement.
eirēnopoios: Peacemaker.
εἰρηνοποιός
This branch names one who makes peace, showing wholeness as something that brings divided sides together.
THE PATTERN
Wholeness is spoken across distance, reaching both the far and the near.
I create the fruit of the lips. Wholeness, wholeness to the one far off and to the one near, says the LORD, and I will heal him.The word which God sent to the children of Israel, bringing good news of wholeness through Jesus the Anointed One; he is Lord of all.And, having made wholeness through the blood of his cross, through him to bring all things back to himself, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.THE THREAD
For he is our wholeness, the one who made both one and loosed the middle wall of the fence.The same Greek word for peace appears here as in verse 17. Verse 14 names wholeness as the force that makes both one and breaks down the partition; verse 17 announces that wholeness to the far and the near.
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