What Does Hebrews 9:20 Mean?
saying, "This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded you."
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
Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.THE KEY
Covenant here is a bond set in place and made visible in blood.
THE MEANING
God’s covenant reaches you as a binding relation marked in blood, not as an abstract promise. The wording joins God’s command to a visible sign, so the promise carries a claim in the present.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the idea that covenant is only an inward intention or spoken promise: here it is enacted and marked in blood.
THE ROOT
διαθήκη
diathēkē
GROWS FROM
τίθημι (tithēmi), carried through διατίθημι (diatithēmi)
To set or place; with διά (dia), to arrange or establish.
The Greek word for covenant carries the sense of a relation set in place, not an idea left open. Blood makes that established bond visible, and “unto you” brings its reach close.
ALSO GROWS
diatithēmi: To arrange, dispose, or establish.
διατίθημι
This verb family names putting a covenant in order, showing the relation as established.
tithēmi: To put, set, or place.
τίθημι
Its concrete sense of setting something in place illuminates covenant as a relation established, not merely discussed.
THE PATTERN
Covenant takes concrete form through a sign or inscription that binds God’s promise to the people.
And I will make my covenant stand between me and you, and your seed after you in their generations, for a covenant of the ages, to be God to you and to your seed after you.But this is the covenant I will cut with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will set my instruction within them, and write it upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.For this is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many, for the release of shortcomings.THE THREAD
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD has cut with you concerning all these words.Hebrews 9:20 echoes this declaration, joining “the blood of the covenant” to the words God enjoins “unto you.” Beside Exodus, the blood marks a bond joined to a spoken commitment.
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