What Does John 13:6 Mean?
Then he came to Simon Peter, and Peter said to him, Lord, are you washing my feet?
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 cometh he to Simon Peter: and Peter saith unto him, Lord, dost thou wash my feet?THE KEY
Peter calls him Lord while the Greek verb pins the scene to the body: this authority comes close enough to wash feet.
THE MEANING
You can call Jesus Lord and still feel disoriented when that lordship comes close enough to meet an ordinary bodily need. Peter’s question holds reverence and the difficulty of receiving care together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It unsettles the belief that authority must keep its distance: here, the Lord approaches Peter at his feet.
THE ROOT
νίπτεις
nípteis
GROWS FROM
νιπτ- (from νίπτω, níptō)
To wash, especially a part of the body.
“are you washing” in this verse is nípteis. This verb names washing a body part, such as hands, face, or feet. Peter is not asking about an abstract cleansing; the question is about the Lord approaching an intimate, concrete need.
ALSO GROWS
nípsai: wash your face
νίψαι
The same root reaches the face, showing that it names ordinary, physical washing.
nípsōntai: wash their hands
νίψωνται
The same root also names washing hands, linking Peter’s feet to another familiar, specific bodily need.
THE PATTERN
Authority is disclosed through care that stoops to meet another person’s bodily needs.
Let a little water be taken, please, and wash your feet, and lean yourselves under the tree.For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his living soul as a ransom for many.Good works bear witness to her, if she has nurtured children, if she has opened her house to strangers, if she has washed the feet of the set-apart ones, if she has come to the aid of the pressed, if she has followed after every good work.THE THREAD
Jesus said to him, The one who has bathed has no need, except to wash the feet, but is wholly clean; and you are clean, though not all of you.Jesus distinguishes being bathed from having feet washed, using νίπτω (níptō, “to wash a body part”) for the feet. That distinction sharpens Peter’s question: the Lord’s care meets a particular, bodily need.
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