What Does Hebrews 10:20 Mean?
A fresh and living way that he opened anew for us through the hanging curtain of his flesh;
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
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;THE KEY
The verse identifies the veil as his flesh, so the way into life passes through embodied life.
THE MEANING
You are included in the “us” for whom this living way is inaugurated now. Its passage is through the veil identified as his flesh, binding access to his embodied life.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that nearness to God requires leaving the body behind: here, the way passes through flesh.
THE ROOT
σαρκός
sarkos
GROWS FROM
σάρξ
sark-
Flesh; bodily, embodied existence.
The verse itself identifies the veil as his flesh. The threshold is bound to his embodied life; it is not an abstract barrier set apart from him.
ALSO GROWS
sarkinos: Made of flesh.
σάρκινος
This form keeps the root’s concrete, bodily sense in view as the verse names flesh as the passage.
sarkikos: Fleshly; pertaining to flesh.
σαρκικός
This related form shows the same root describing embodied existence, the very life the verse identifies with the veil.
ὁδόν
hodon
GROWS FROM
ὁδός
hod-
A path, road, or way of passage.
Ὁδός names a traversed path. Its compounds ἔξοδος (“way out”) and μέθοδος (“pursuit, procedure”) keep movement visible; here, that path is called living and passes through the veil identified as flesh.
ALSO GROWS
exodos: Departure; a way out.
ἔξοδος
This compound preserves ὁδός as a way of passage, echoing the verse’s language of an opened route.
methodos: Pursuit; procedure.
μέθοδος
The word retains ὁδός inside a course one follows, illuminating the way as something traversed.
ἐνεκαίνισεν
enekainisen
GROWS FROM
ἐγκαινίζω (enkainizō), from the καιν- (kain-) word family
To inaugurate or dedicate; to open something for use anew.
“opened anew” in this verse is enekainisen. The verb translated “consecrated” carries the sense of inauguration and belongs to the word family of καινός (“new, fresh”). The path is dedicated for passage, giving consecration the feel of an opening.
ALSO GROWS
kainos: New; fresh.
καινός
This related word family gives the act of consecrating an echo of newness.
enkainia: Dedication; inauguration.
ἐγκαίνια
This noun from the same family names a dedication, connecting consecration with opening something to use.
anakainoō: Renew; make new.
ἀνακαινόω
This related form shows the family’s recurring movement toward newness.
THE PATTERN
Access to God’s presence is pictured as a passage through a threshold.
And you shall hang up the veil under the taches, so that you may bring in there, within the veil, the ark of the testimony; and the veil shall divide for you between the set-apart place and the most set-apart place.And look, the hanging curtain of the temple was torn in two, from above to below, and the earth shook, and the rocks broke open.Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.THE THREAD
Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.Both verses use ὁδός (hodos, “way”), the word for a path one traverses. Hebrews calls that way living and identifies its threshold as flesh; John places the same path in Jesus’ own words: “I am the way.”
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