What Does Hebrews 2:13 Mean?
And again, I will lean my weight on him. And again, Look, I and the children God has given me.
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 again, I will put my trust in him. And again, Behold I and the children which God hath given me.THE KEY
Trust here is not solitary ascent: the speaker relies on God while standing with the children God gives him.
THE MEANING
You hear trust voiced from inside a shared life: the speaker relies on God while naming the children God gives him as his own company. Trust and kinship stand together; the one who depends on God is not set apart from the children.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that closeness to God means standing apart from those named as his own: here, the speaker who trusts God is joined to the children God gives.
THE ROOT
πεποιθὼς
pepoithōs
GROWS FROM
πείθω (peithō; stem πειθ-)
To persuade or win over; in this form, to be persuaded and thus trust or rely.
“lean my weight on him” in this verse is pepoithōs. The form carries the sense of having been persuaded and standing in confidence. English “trust” can sound like an opinion; this root holds a movement into reliance, as the speaker rests his confidence on God while standing with the children.
ALSO GROWS
pepoithēsis: confidence, reliance
πεποίθησις
This related noun names the confidence that grows from being persuaded, showing trust as settled reliance.
apeitheō: to refuse to be persuaded; to disobey
ἀπειθέω
This negative branch shows the opposite of trust as resistance to being persuaded, not simply a lack of information.
δέδωκεν
dedōken
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι (didōmi; stem δω-)
To give or grant.
The root deepens “given” as an act of giving or granting. Paired with “I and the children,” it frames them as received within a shared relation.
ALSO GROWS
dōrea: gift, free gift
δωρεά
This related noun makes the root’s act of giving explicit: the children are described as what God gives.
dosis: giving, gift
δόσις
This related noun carries the act of giving into the name of what is given, echoing the verse’s language.
THE PATTERN
God-given belonging draws the speaker into a family rather than placing him above it.
Behold, I and the children whom the LORD has given me are for marks and for wonders in Israel, from the LORD of hosts, who pitches his tent on Mount Zion.I have made your nature visible to the people you gave me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have guarded your word.For whom he knew beforehand, he also marked out beforehand to be shaped together into the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.THE THREAD
For I am leaning my full weight upon this, that neither death, nor life, nor messengers, nor rulers, nor powers, nor things standing here, nor things about to come.“Persuaded” here and “trust” in Hebrews come from the Greek verb πείθω, to persuade or win over. Romans gives that trust the shape of settled conviction, opening Hebrews’ reliance on God as a confidence held alongside the children God gives.
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