What Does John 13:2 Mean?
As supper was ending, the Slanderer had already cast into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to hand him over;
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 supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him;THE KEY
Betrayal begins as an intention cast into the heart before it becomes an outward handing-over.
THE MEANING
The Slanderer’s action takes a concrete form: an intention is cast into Judas’s heart to hand Jesus over. The verse holds the inward beginning and the outward transfer in one movement. It speaks now wherever an intention taking hold within begins to shape an act.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Betrayal begins only at the visible act; this verse locates its beginning earlier, in an intention taking root within the heart.
THE ROOT
βεβληκότος
beblēkotos
GROWS FROM
βάλλω
ballō
To throw, cast, or place.
The Greek verb rendered “put” is a form of ballō, giving the inward action the force of something cast into the heart. The same word family appears in diabolos, the Slanderer, and diaballō, to slander or accuse: the verse echoes its agent in the way the intention is placed.
ALSO GROWS
ballō: To throw, cast, or place.
βάλλω
The participle in this verse comes from this verb: an intention has been cast into the heart.
diabolos: Slanderer / to slander or accuse.
διάβολος / διαβάλλω
These words share the ballō family, echoing the casting action in the name of the one who casts the intention.
παραδῷ
paradō
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι (didōmi), with παρά (para)
To give; with para-, to give over or hand over.
“hand him over” in this verse is paradō. The word rendered “betray” is paradidōmi: to give over or hand over. The verb names a transfer; the context gives that transfer its meaning as betrayal here, while the same verb elsewhere can describe another kind of giving over.
ALSO GROWS
didōmi: To give or bestow.
δίδωμι
Paradidōmi is formed from this verb, so the act of betrayal is expressed through the language of giving.
paradosis: What is handed down; a tradition.
παράδοσις
This related word carries the sense of something passed along, extending the same handover image.
paradidōmi: To hand over, deliver, or betray, depending on context.
παραδίδωμι
Here it names Jesus being handed over; the surrounding intention makes that transfer betrayal.
THE PATTERN
What takes hold inwardly can shape and eventually produce outward action.
Above every watch you keep, guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life.For from within, out of the heart of men, come evil weighings, fornications, thefts, murders,But each one is tested by his own craving, dragged out and lured. Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.THE THREAD
He who did not spare his own Son, but handed him over for us all, how will he not also favor us with all things along with him?“Delivered him up” translates the same Greek verb, paradidōmi, as “betray” in John 13:2. The shared root names a handing-over; the surrounding purpose gives that act its different meaning.
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