What Does Hebrews 3:6 Mean?
But the Anointed One, as a son, is over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast our open speech and the boasting of the hope, firm to the end.
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
But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.THE KEY
The verse names the people who hold fast to hope as Christ’s house itself.
THE MEANING
Christ stands as a Son over his own household. The verse calls us that house if we hold firmly to confidence and the rejoicing hope through the end.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
God’s house is only a place I enter from outside; here, the verse names the reader as part of the house itself.
THE ROOT
οἶκος
oikos
GROWS FROM
οἶκος
oikos
House, household, dwelling.
English can make “house” sound like a building, but οἶκος (oikos, house or household) names the dwelling and the people who belong to it. Its word family includes dwelling and building; here, the verse says we are the house, not merely people inside it.
ALSO GROWS
oikeō: Dwell, live in a place.
οἰκέω
The household is a place of dwelling, not just a structure.
oikodomeō: Build or build up a house.
οἰκοδομέω
The house language can describe people being formed together into a dwelling.
κατάσχωμεν
kataschōmen
GROWS FROM
ἔχω
echō
Have, hold, possess.
“hold fast” in this verse is kataschōmen. The verb κατάσχωμεν (kataschōmen, hold firmly) belongs to the ἔχω (echō, have or hold) family. Related forms can mean retaining something or sharing in it, so confidence and hope are what the household continues to hold as it remains joined to Christ.
ALSO GROWS
echō: Have, hold, possess.
ἔχω
This is the basic holding sense beneath “hold fast.”
katechō: Hold fast, retain, keep possession.
κατέχω
It makes the verse’s condition a continuing grasp of confidence and hope.
metechō: Share in, partake of.
μετέχω
The same word family can connect holding with participation, which Hebrews 3:14 makes explicit.
THE PATTERN
God’s house is a living household formed from people who are joined together and remain faithful.
Not so is my servant Moses. He is steady in all my house.You also, as living stones, are built up into a house of breath, a set-apart priesthood, to carry up sacrifices of breath, well received by God through Jesus, the Anointed One.In whom you also are built together into a place where God settles, through breath.THE THREAD
For we have become sharers of the Anointed One, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence, firm to the end.Hebrews 3:14 repeats κατάσχωμεν (kataschōmen, hold firmly) and connects that holding with sharing in Christ. The two verses link being named as the house with continuing participation in Christ.
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