What Does John 11:47 Mean?
Then the chief priests and the separated ones gathered together in council, and said, What are we doing? For this man does many signs.
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
Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.THE KEY
The signs are acknowledged as real, yet seeing them does not settle what they mean.
THE MEANING
Recognition and response are not the same act: you can see what is happening and still face an unsettled response to what it points toward. The gathering admits that many signs are occurring, but that admission alone does not resolve their meaning.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that clear evidence automatically produces agreement about what it means.
THE ROOT
σημεῖα
sēmeia
GROWS FROM
σημ- (sēm-), from σῆμα (sēma)
Mark, sign, or token; something that indicates or points.
The Greek word translated “miracles” also names these acts as signs: visible events that point beyond themselves. The council acknowledges the signs, while the verse leaves open what they will make of what those signs indicate.
ALSO GROWS
sēma: A sign, mark, or token.
σῆμα
This root sense brings out the pointing quality beneath the word translated “miracles.”
sēmainō: To signify or indicate.
σημαίνω
This related word keeps attention on what an event points toward, not only on the event itself.
THE PATTERN
A sign can make what is happening visible without compelling anyone to trust what it reveals.
And it shall come to pass, if they will not lean their weight on you, nor hear and respond to the voice of the first sign, that they will lean their weight on the voice of the latter sign.This beginning of signs Jesus made in Cana of Galilee, and he brought his weight into the light, and his disciples leaned their weight on him.But though he had done so many signs before them, they did not lean their weight on him.THE THREAD
But though he had done so many signs before them, they did not lean their weight on him.John uses the same Greek word, σημεῖα (sēmeia, signs), for the many acts named here as miracles. The later verse makes explicit the tension already present: seeing the signs does not determine the response.
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