What Does John 11:55 Mean?
Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the land to Jerusalem before the Passover, to set themselves apart.
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
And the Jews’ passover was nigh at hand: and many went out of the country up to Jerusalem before the passover, to purify themselves.THE KEY
The crowd’s approach to the feast is also a movement into purity: the word for purifying shares its seed with the word for pure.
THE MEANING
A sacred moment draws near, and you move toward it while clearing what clouds your readiness. The verse holds arrival and self-purification together, making preparation part of the approach. Readiness appears as what obscures it is removed.
THE ROOT
ἁγνίσωσιν
hagnisōsin
GROWS FROM
ἁγν-
hagn-
Pure or clean; this word family names both the act of purifying and the state of being pure.
“set themselves apart” in this verse is hagnisōsin. The Greek word for purifying belongs to the same family as ἁγνός (hagnos), meaning pure. English separates the cleansing action from the quality it opens into, while the shared stem joins them in one movement.
ALSO GROWS
hagnizō: To purify or cleanse.
ἁγνίζω
This is the verb whose form describes the people preparing themselves before the feast.
hagnos: Pure.
ἁγνός
The related adjective names the state toward which the act of purification moves.
hagneia: Purity.
ἁγνεία
This related noun gives the same word family a name for the quality itself, linking the act of cleansing with the condition it reveals.
THE PATTERN
Nearness to a shared encounter is paired with preparation that makes a person ready for presence and relation.
And the LORD said to Moses, Go to the people, and set them apart today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes.Who climbs the mountain of the LORD? Who stands in his set-apart place? Clean of hands and clear of heart, he who does not lift up his living soul to emptiness, nor swears in deceit.Having cleansed your living souls in the hearing and response to the truth, through the breath, unto a love of the brothers without a mask, love one another from a clean heart, stretched out.THE THREAD
Everyone who has this hope resting upon him cleanses himself, just as he is clean.The verb translated purifieth belongs to the same Greek word family as purify here, and the verse ends with the related word for pure. In John 11, people prepare themselves as the feast draws near; here, purification and purity appear together within one person.
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