What Does John 10:32 Mean?
Jesus answered them, Many good works I showed you from my Father. For which of these works do you stone me?
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
Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?THE KEY
The works are called good while the threat of stones is present: goodness and violence occupy the same moment.
THE MEANING
You see good works named beside a threat of being stoned, and the question refuses to let that threat pass as an obvious response. The deeds stand visible; the reason for the violence remains under examination.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it exposes is that a good work guarantees recognition or welcome; goodness can be seen and still met with hostility.
THE ROOT
λιθάζετε
lithazete
GROWS FROM
λιθ-
lith-
stone, the material itself
English makes “stone” a verb, while Greek keeps the material and the act of throwing stones in the same word family. The threat is not abstract opposition: stones become an action aimed at a person, right beside the good works.
ALSO GROWS
lithos: stone
λίθος
The noun names the material carried inside the verb “to stone.”
lithinos: made of stone
λίθινος
This branch keeps the act tied to something solid and tangible, rather than a vague image of rejection.
ἔργα
erga
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
work, action, activity
English “works” can sound like a row of finished deeds; the Greek word family also names doing and the worker, holding action and actor together. Here the works are presented as the Father’s activity made visible.
ALSO GROWS
ergon: work, deed, action
ἔργον
The singular keeps each visible act within the same family as the plural works Jesus names.
ergazomai: to work, do, accomplish
ἐργάζομαι
The verb makes explicit the doing contained in the works being shown.
THE PATTERN
When good is met with hostility, the hostility can expose the response without changing the character of the good.
They repay me evil for good, to the bereaving of my living soul.Whoever repays evil for good, evil does not step away from his house.But this comes to pass, so that the word written in their instruction may be filled, "They hated me without cause."THE THREAD
The Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being human, make yourself God.Their answer makes the contradiction explicit: they deny that the good work is the reason, yet the stones remain in their hands. The next verse keeps the act of stoning beside the reason they name.
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