What Does Hebrews 5:2 Mean?
Who can bear gently with the unknowing and with those who wander, since he himself is also encircled by weakness.
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
Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity.THE KEY
The one who meets ignorance and wandering gently is himself surrounded by weakness.
THE MEANING
The one who tends you meets what you do not know and where you have wandered with gentleness, because weakness surrounds him too. Frailty is not outside compassion; it makes another person’s wandering recognizable from within.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this dissolves is that the one who helps must be free of weakness and stand above the one who has wandered. Here, compassionate care comes from someone who is also surrounded by infirmity.
THE ROOT
μετριοπαθεῖν
metriopathein
GROWS FROM
παθ- (path-), with μετριο- (metrio-) as a measuring prefix
The παθ- family carries the sense of feeling or undergoing; μετριο- adds measure, giving the full verb the sense of dealing gently or feeling with restraint.
“bear gently with” in this verse is metriopathein. The Greek verb joins measured response with the language of feeling and undergoing. Compassion here is not detached judgment: it meets another person’s condition with a measured gentleness.
ALSO GROWS
paschō: to undergo, feel, or suffer
πάσχω
This branch ties compassion to experiencing what is undergone, rather than merely labeling another person’s state.
pathēma: what is undergone; suffering
πάθημα
It connects gentle care with the felt reality of what another person bears.
πλανωμένοις
planōmenois
GROWS FROM
πλαν-
plan-
To wander or stray; the word can also describe being led astray.
“those who wander” in this verse is planōmenois. The phrase pictures people as wandering, not as a fixed kind of person. Their direction can be lost, while the verse’s gentleness meets them there.
ALSO GROWS
planaō: to wander or lead astray
πλανάω
It shows that straying can involve both losing one’s way and being led off course.
planē: wandering; error
πλάνη
It keeps the image of error tied to movement away from the way, rather than turning it into an identity.
ἀσθενείᾳ
astheneia
GROWS FROM
σθεν- (sthen-), with privative ἀ- (a-)
σθεν- carries the sense of strength; ἀσθεν- describes its absence or lack.
“encircled by weakness” in this verse is astheneia. The word presents infirmity as lack of strength, and the verse says that weakness surrounds the one who tends others. Compassion is located inside shared frailty, not above it.
ALSO GROWS
asthenēs: weak; without strength
ἀσθενής
It names the person’s condition as weakness rather than as a failure of worth.
astheneō: to be weak or lack strength
ἀσθενέω
It makes weakness a lived condition that can be shared by the one who cares and the one being cared for.
THE PATTERN
Compassion meets frailty without crushing it, because weakness is shared by the one who tends and the one who wanders.
For he perceives our shape; he remembers that we are dust.A crushed reed he will not break, and a dimming wick he will not snuff out. He will bring out judgment into truth.Now we who are strong owe it to carry the weaknesses of the powerless, and not to please ourselves.THE THREAD
For we do not have a high priest who cannot suffer alongside our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in every way as we are, apart from falling short.The Greek ἀσθενείᾳ (astheneia, weakness) here and ἀσθενείαις (astheneiais, weaknesses) in Hebrews 4:15 belong to the same word family. Read together, the verses show the high priest’s gentleness arising from shared vulnerability.
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