What Does Hebrews 2:14 Mean?
Since then the children share in common flesh and blood, he likewise shared in those same things with them, so that through death he might make idle the one who held the strength of death, the Slanderer.
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
Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;THE KEY
Death’s power is broken from inside the shared human condition: he takes the same flesh and blood and passes through death.
THE MEANING
Your flesh and blood are the human condition this verse places at the center of deliverance. The one who shares that condition meets death from within it, and the Slanderer’s power is rendered ineffective through death itself. Death remains real, yet its authority has a boundary.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that mortal flesh must be escaped before death can be overcome dissolves here: the power breaks through shared flesh and through death itself.
THE ROOT
καταργήσῃ
katargēsē
GROWS FROM
ἀργ- (in καταργέω, katargeō)
Idle or inactive; the verb carries the sense of rendering something inoperative.
“make idle” in this verse is katargēsē. The one who holds death’s power is rendered powerless. The same Greek verb describes death as “abolished” in 2 Timothy 1:10, revealing a power brought to inactivity.
ALSO GROWS
argos: Idle, inactive
ἀργός
This word carries the inactive state at the center of the family, giving καταργέω its image of reducing a power to inactivity.
katargēsis: Abolition, rendering inoperative
κατάργησις
This related noun shows the same family expressing the ending of an operation or power.
κεκοινώνηκεν
kekoinōnēken
GROWS FROM
κοινων-
koinōn-
What is common or shared; to participate in something held in common.
“share in common” in this verse is kekoinōnēken. The children have flesh and blood in common. The next clause uses μετέσχεν (meteschen, “took a share”) for his participation, placing him inside the human condition the children share.
ALSO GROWS
koinōnia: Sharing in common
κοινωνία
This familiar branch makes the common share in flesh and blood explicit.
koinōnos: Partner, participant
κοινωνός
A participant belongs to what is shared; the verse places him in the same human condition.
διάβολον
diabolon
GROWS FROM
διαβάλλω
diaballō
To slander or accuse; the word names the Slanderer.
The verse names the holder of death’s power by the character of the Slanderer. The word family exposes accusation as part of what this power does.
ALSO GROWS
diaballō: Slander, accuse
διαβάλλω
This verb names the action beneath the title: accusation directed against another.
diabolē: Slander, accusation
διαβολή
This noun names the accusation itself, showing the character carried in the word “devil.”
THE PATTERN
The power of death is broken by a life that passes through it and exceeds its dominion.
He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord GOD will wipe tears from all faces, and he will remove the taunt of his people from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken.But now was made visible by the shining forth of our Deliverer, Jesus the Anointed One, who has put death out of work, and brought life and what does not rot into the light through the good news.Knowing that the Anointed One, having been raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer masters him.THE THREAD
But now was made visible by the shining forth of our Deliverer, Jesus the Anointed One, who has put death out of work, and brought life and what does not rot into the light through the good news.The same Greek verb translated “destroy” here is translated “abolished” in this verse. Hebrews names the Slanderer as the one whose death-power is rendered ineffective; 2 Timothy names death itself as abolished, widening the scale of the same undoing.
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