What Does John 11:5 Mean?
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.
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
Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.THE KEY
The Greek imperfect presents Jesus’ love for Martha, her sister, and Lazarus as continuing within the scene.
THE MEANING
Love holds you while the outcome is still unfolding. Jesus’ love reaches Martha, her sister, and Lazarus together, and the Greek verb portrays that love as continuing within the scene.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that hardship means love is absent.
THE ROOT
ἠγάπα
ēgapa
GROWS FROM
ἀγαπ-
Love; to love or cherish with affection.
“loved” in this verse is ēgapa. The verb belongs to the same Greek word family as ἀγάπη (agapē, love) and ἀγαπητός (agapētos, beloved). Its imperfect form presents the love as continuing within the scene, holding three people together without making their circumstances the measure of that love.
ALSO GROWS
agapaō: To love.
ἀγαπάω
This is the verb’s lexical form, sharing the ἀγαπ- stem and showing the action behind “loved.”
agapē: Love.
ἀγάπη
The noun shares the same stem, showing the bond as both an action and a named reality.
agapētos: Beloved.
ἀγαπητός
This related word names the one who is loved, joining the act of loving to the person held in that bond.
THE PATTERN
Love holds a relationship through changing circumstances and precedes the response it awakens.
From afar the LORD appeared to me, saying, I have loved you with a love of the ages. Therefore with faithful love I have drawn you.Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus the Anointed One, our Lord.We love him, for he first loved us.THE THREAD
We love him, for he first loved us.The Greek ἀγαπ- family appears in ἠγάπα (ēgapa, loved) here and ἀγαπῶμεν (agapōmen, we love) and ἠγάπησεν (ēgapēsen, he loved) in 1 John. That verse makes the sequence visible: love already given is the ground from which love answers.
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