What Does John 1:29 Mean?
The next day John perceived Jesus coming toward him, and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the falling short of the world.
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
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.THE KEY
The Greek verb for taking away also means lifting or carrying, so the Lamb removes the world’s missing by taking it up.
THE MEANING
The Lamb of God takes up and removes the world’s missing, and that claim reaches you within the word “world.” Your failure is something this verse says is being borne away; it does not name you as beyond its reach.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Your missing is too deep or too defining to be carried away.
THE ROOT
αἴρων
airōn
GROWS FROM
αἰρ-
The Greek root αἰρ- (air-) carries the senses lift, carry, and take away.
“takes away” in this verse is airōn. The verb translated “taketh away” can also mean to lift or carry. Its related compounds keep both movements visible: ἐπαίρω (epairō, lift up) raises, while ἀπαίρω (apairō, take away) removes; the word lets the removal be heard as something first taken up.
ALSO GROWS
epairō: Lift up, raise.
ἐπαίρω
This compound preserves the lifting sense within the same Greek word family.
apairō: Take away, remove, depart.
ἀπαίρω
This compound makes the removal sense explicit while retaining the same αἰρ- root.
ἁμαρτίαν
hamartían
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτ-
The Greek family ἁμαρτ- (hamart-) carries the sense of missing or erring and, in use, names wrongdoing.
“falling short” in this verse is hamartían. The verse names the world’s missing with ἁμαρτίαν (hamartían), a word tied to missing and erring rather than an abstract, sealed category. The Lamb’s action is directed at that missing itself: he takes it up and removes it.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: Miss, err, do wrong.
ἁμαρτάνω
This verb shares the root and shows the action carried within the noun translated “sin.”
hamartēma: An error, wrong, or offense.
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun names an instance or result of the same missing.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
The Hebrew root יָשַׁע (yasha) means to deliver, bringing someone out of constriction into spaciousness.
The name rendered “Jesus” carries the nature of deliverance. The one named here as the Lamb bears away the world’s missing, and his name belongs to the same movement from constriction toward spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
yeshu‘ah: Deliverance.
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun shares the root and names the deliverance carried in Yeshua’s name.
moshia‘: Deliverer, one who delivers.
מוֹשִׁיעַ
This form shares the root and names the one who brings deliverance.
THE PATTERN
The burden of many is taken up by a single bearer and carried away.
The goat carries upon himself all their crookedness into a cut-off land, and he sends the goat away into the wilderness.All of us like sheep have wandered; each has turned to his own way, and the LORD has caused the crookedness of us all to fall upon him.Who himself carried our shortcomings in his own body on the tree, that we, dead to shortcomings, might live to alignment; and by his bruises you were healed.THE THREAD
And you know that he was made visible to take away our shortcomings, and in him there is no falling short.In Greek, this verse repeats the root ἁμαρτ- (hamart-, missing) and uses ἄρῃ (arē, take away), a form of αἴρω (airō, lift or carry away). John 1:29 names the scope as the world; here the same removal is named as the purpose of his appearing, and the verse says no sin is in him.
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