What Does Galatians 5:11 Mean?
And I, brothers, if I still herald circumcision, why am I still pursued? Then the snare of the cross has been made idle.
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 I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the cross ceased.THE KEY
The cross’s stumbling point disappears when circumcision is preached as the credential for belonging.
THE MEANING
The verse tests a message by the collision it creates: if circumcision is preached as the condition of belonging, the speaker asks why persecution still follows. The cross remains a stumbling point where no bodily mark can secure standing; once that mark becomes decisive, the stumbling point is removed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that circumcision can be added as a harmless completion while the cross keeps the same force. If the mark becomes the condition of standing, the cross’s stumbling point has ceased.
THE ROOT
σκάνδαλον
skandalon
GROWS FROM
σκандαλ- (skandal-)
A stumbling point or trap trigger: something that catches a person and can make them fall.
“snare” in this verse is skandalon. English offence can sound like an insult; σκάνδαλον carries the image of a stumbling point. The cross catches the assumptions brought to it, and the verse says that point is gone if circumcision becomes the decisive credential.
ALSO GROWS
skandalizō: Cause to stumble, trip up.
σκανδαλίζω
The verb shows the same word-family at work as an action: something becomes a stumbling point for another.
skandalismos: A stumbling block, offense.
σκανδαλισμός
This related noun makes visible the shared idea behind the verse’s “offence”: a point that trips or catches.
περιτομή
peritomē
GROWS FROM
τεμ- (tem-, from τέμνω, temnō) with περί (peri, around)
A cutting around; the word names the bodily mark through the act that makes it.
“circumcision” in this verse is peritomē. The Greek keeps the physical cutting audible inside the word. In this verse that mark is presented as a credential that could make the cross’s stumbling point cease.
ALSO GROWS
peritemnō: Cut around; circumcise.
περιτέμνω
This verb shares the same word-family and states the act contained in the noun.
tomē: A cutting, incision.
τομή
This related form keeps the concrete sense of cutting present beneath the name of the practice.
διώκομαι
diōkomai
GROWS FROM
διωκ-
diōk-
Pursue or chase; in this verse, be pursued.
The English noun phrase can make persecution sound like a condition that simply happens; the Greek verb presents the speaker as being pursued. That active pursuit sharpens the verse’s question: if the message no longer catches people at the cross, why does it still draw this response?
ALSO GROWS
diōgmos: Pursuit, persecution.
διωγμός
This noun from the same stem names the pursuit as an ongoing pressure.
diōktēs: Pursuer, persecutor.
διώκτης
This word names the one doing the pursuing, keeping the active force of the root visible.
THE PATTERN
When the cross overturns accepted grounds of standing, it becomes a stumbling point and can draw resistance.
But we herald the Anointed One, crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to the nations.As many as desire to show a good face in the flesh, these press you to be circumcised, only so that they might not be pursued for the cross of the Anointed One.And a stone to strike against, and a rock that springs the trap, to those who strike against the word and will not yield, and to this they were also set.THE THREAD
But we herald the Anointed One, crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to the nations.Here the cross is called the same Greek word, σκάνδαλον: a stumbling point. That shared word makes Galatians’ “offence” concrete, the cross itself catches the assumptions brought to it.
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