What Does Galatians 4:13 Mean?
You know how it was through weakness of the flesh that I brought you the good news at the first.
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
Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.THE KEY
The gospel reaches you through a body with limits, so weakness is inside the scene of proclamation rather than outside it.
THE MEANING
Your body can be weak, and the message can still pass through it; this verse holds both realities together. The limitation does not make the proclamation absent.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse undoes is that bodily weakness makes proclamation impossible or the speaker unfit.
THE ROOT
ἀσθένειαν
astheneian
GROWS FROM
ἀσθεν-
asthen-
Without strength; formed from ἀ- (a-, without) and σθένος (sthenos, strength).
This word holds bodily limitation, a lack of strength, rather than a flaw in character. “Through infirmity” places that limitation in the path of the proclamation; the weakness does not cancel the message’s passage.
ALSO GROWS
astheneō: To be weak or ill.
ἀσθενέω
This branch shows that the word family describes a condition of weakness, including bodily weakness.
asthenēs: Weak, feeble, without strength.
ἀσθενής
This related form names the person or thing as weak, echoing the bodily condition through which the message is spoken.
εὐηγγελισάμην
euēngelisamēn
GROWS FROM
εὐαγγελ-
euangel-
Announce good news; the word family connects the proclamation with the good news itself.
“brought the good news” in this verse is euēngelisamēn. The word for preaching carries the sense of announcing good news. Its family links the message to the act of carrying it, so the verse holds the messenger’s bodily weakness and the news being delivered in the same moment.
ALSO GROWS
euangelion: Good news, gospel.
εὐαγγέλιον
This is the message being announced through the speaker’s bodily weakness.
euangelistēs: Announcer of good news.
εὐαγγελιστής
This branch names the messenger-role implicit in preaching: someone carries the news to others.
THE PATTERN
Weakness does not bar a person from bearing or receiving God’s work.
He gives power to the faint, and to those without might he multiplies strength.But God picked out the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; and God picked out the weak things of the world to shame the strong.And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.THE THREAD
And he said to me, "My favor is enough for you, for strength is carried to its end in weakness." Most gladly, then, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the strength of the Anointed One may pitch its tent over me.The same Greek noun translated “infirmity” in Galatians appears here as “infirmities.” This verse makes explicit what Galatians shows in the act of preaching: weakness and power occupy the same moment.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us